ExpoKids: Background

Learn about ExpoKids

ExpoKids is the product of a group of scientists in EPA who took an existing tool, EPA's Exposure Factors Interactive Resource for Scenarios Tool (ExpoFIRST), and created an additional tool to visualize exposure for a specific population of people. ExpoFIRST was designed to estimate average daily dose (ADD) and lifetime average daily dose (LADD) by lifestage.   ExpoFIRST is a standalone tool, developed as an MS Access database,  that utilizes the EPA's Exposure Factors Handbook (EFH) to provide deterministic potential dose estimates for user-defined exposure scenarios. The EFH summarizes available human exposure data and is the standard EPA reference for recommended exposure factors.

ExpoKids is limited to visualizing ADDs from the oral exposure route for postnatal childhood lifestages (from birth to puberty) and includes adults as a comparator group. Chemical-specific exposure information for various media are first input into ExpoFIRST to calculate ADDs by lifestage.  These ADDs from ExpoFIRST can then be input into ExpoKids to display aggregate oral exposure estimate ADDs and lifetime average daily doses (LADDs) in graphs organized by 7 postnatal and adult lifestages for 10 media.

ExpoKids Version 1.0 is an R-based visualization tool that graphically illustrates estimates of relative exposure and aggregate exposure sources within and across lifestages. ExpoKids R Shiny Application is an online version of the downloadable R code.

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History of ExpoKids

Date	Milestone
2016	EPA released the ExpoFIRST final report and Microsoft Access database tool.
2018	EPA released an update of ExpoFIRST (version 2.0)
2019	EPA released an update to ExpoFIRST (version 2.1). EPA began to develop ExpoKids.
2020	EPA released downloadable ExpoKids R code, a user manual, and published a journal article about ExpoKids.
2021	EPA released ExpoKids Online Application (version 1.0).