csefh - Kinder-Umwelt-Gesundheit

Child-Specific Exposure Factors Handbook
Chapter 4 - Non-dietary Ingestion Factors
confirming the observations of other researchers that
children’s mouthing contacts are of very short
duration. For the one child observed that was ?24
months, the total indoor mouthing duration was 11.1
minutes/hour; for children >24 months, the median
indoor mouthing duration was 0.9 minutes/hour (Table
4-19). For outdoor environments, median contact
durations for these age groups decreased to 0.8 and 0.6
minutes/hour, respectively (Table 4-20).
Nonparametric tests, such as the Wilcoxon
rank sum test were used for the data analyses. Both age
and gender were found to be associated with
differences in mouthing behavior. Girls’ hand to
mouth contact durations were significantly shorter
than for boys (p = 0.04).
This study provides distributions of outdoor
mouthing durations with a variety of objects and
surfaces. Although indoor mouthing data were also
included in this study, the results were based on a
small number of children (N=9) and a limited amount
of indoor play. The sample of children may be
representative of certain socioeconomic strata in the
study area, but is not likely to be representative of the
national population. Due to the children’s ages, the
presence of unfamiliar persons following the children
with a video camera may have influenced the videotranscription
methodology results.
4.5 MOUTHING PREVALENCE
4.5.1 Stanek et al., 1998 - Prevalence of Soil
Mouthing/Ingestion Among Healthy
Children Aged 1 to 6
Stanek et al. (1998) characterized the
prevalence of mouthing behavior among healthy
children based on a survey response study of parents or
guardians of 533 children (289 females, 244 males)
ages 1 to 6 years old. Study participants were
attendees at scheduled well-child visits at three clinics
in Western Massachusetts in August through October,
1992. Participants were questioned about the
frequency of 28 mouthing behaviors of the children
over the preceding month in addition to exposure time
(e.g., time outdoors, play in sand or dirt) and
children’s characteristics (e.g., teething).
Table 4-21 presents the prevalence of reported
non-food ingestion/mouthing behaviors by child’s age
as the percent of children whose parents reported the
behavior in the preceding month. The table includes
a column of data for the 3 to