Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on October 22, 2008
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2008 52(8):784-785; doi:10.1093/annhyg/men064
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
LETTER TO THE EDITOR |
Reply
We thank Prof. Kromhout and coauthors for their letter with regard to our paper (Blanco et al., 2008). Professor Kromhout et al. raised two major points: (i) whether it is correct to test the accuracy of a method using the same data set from which its determinants were derived and (ii) the direct comparison of our method with the DeRmal Exposure Assessment Method (DREAM) (van Wendel de Joode et al., 2003, 2005a,b).We agree with Prof. Kromhout that the performance assessment is based on the same data set as the determinants derived from. Therefore, we mentioned in the discussion section of our paper that the validation of DERM is still incomplete. Indeed, we have finalized the collection of new set of data and are preparing a manuscript on the reliability of DERM using these independent data.
With regard to the second point raised by Prof. Kromhout and colleagues, in order to report an assessment of the performance of DERM, we looked at studies reporting the validation of a method based on determinants of dermal exposure. We found that the DREAM method is the only one that has been validated against a method based on fluorescent tracer—the VITAE method (van Wendel de Joode et al., 2005a). Because we assessed the performance of DERM by comparing its estimates to those obtained with the total visual score, which is a method based on fluorescent tracer, we referred to the results from the evaluation of DREAM against VITAE. By no means was it our intention to claim that DERM outperforms the DREAM method, but rather to point out several promising characteristics of the DERM method. We agree with the authors of the letter that for a comparison of the DREAM and DERM, it would be necessary to apply both methods side-by-side in a new study of Nicaraguan subsistence farmers applying pesticides. We would like to invite Dr Kromhout and colleagues to collaborate with us in a future project in this respect.
Finally, we would like to apologize for the mistake in the sentence from the Discussion section; we wrote then ‘However, validated semiquantitative DREAM's for pesticides applicable in developing countries are to our knowledge non-existent’. The sentence should read ‘However, validated semiquantitative methods for pesticides applicable in developing countries are to our knowledge non-existent’.
Centre for research on Health, Work and Environment, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua—Faculty of Medical Sciences, Nicaragua
Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Uppsala University, Sweden
Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Received August 28, 2008; in final form September 6, 2008
REFERENCES
Blanco L, Aragón A, Lundberg I, et al. The Determinants of Dermal Exposure Ranking Method (DERM): a pesticide exposure assessment approach for developing countries. Ann Occup Hyg (2008) 52:535–44.
van Wendel de Joode B, Brouwer DH, Vermeulen R, et al. DREAM: a method for semi-quantitative dermal exposure assessment. Ann Occup Hyg (2003) 47:71–87.
van Wendel de Joode B, Bierman EPB, Bouwer DH, et al. An assessment of dermal exposure to semi-synthetic metal working fluids by different methods to group workers for an epidemiological study on dermatitis. Occup Environ Med (2005a) 62:633–41.
van Wendel de Joode B, van-Hemmen JJ, Meijster T, et al. Reliability of a semi-quantitative method for dermal exposure assessment (DREAM). J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol (2005b) 15:111–20.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||