Dataset of BPA concentration levels in food from the second French total diet study

Information about the BPA data set

1. Description of the total diet study 2 (TDS2) and the BPA study

The French TDS2 consisted in collecting food products representative of the French population's consumption. This kind of study has been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and are implemented with standardized methods. The collected foods were prepared “as consumed” to take account of the population’s common practices, they were combined as composite/pooled samples and were analyzed for chemicals of public health interest. The aims of the TDS2 were to assess the population's exposure to the analyzed substances and the risk for the substances for which reference values exist. To achieve these objectives nearly 20,000 food products were purchased in about 30 cities throughout France (metropolitan territory) and prepared to constitute 1,319 samples corresponding to 212 food items (Sirot et al, 2009). Each sample was composed of 15 sub-samples of the same food and mass, considering different brands and consumer food preferences. All samples, except a few, were collected twice during the TDS to reflect the potential seasonal variability in composition or contamination. Some foods were also purchased in different regions of France because of the potential regional differences in contamination.

Analysis of BPA contamination levels in food was not initially planned in the TDS2, and was conducted in a second wave of analyses. The laboratory (LABERCA) in charge of analysis verified that sample containers did not contain BPA. Some TDS samples had not a sufficient weight to be analyzed so only 207 food items were considered.

2. Description of the data set

The dataset presents the BPA contamination levels at the food item level, i.e. seasonal sample values were averaged at the regional level and then regional sample values were averaged to represent the national level. The original regional dataset is available in French at the following URL https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/r/4b911e97-368b-4b0e-8891-cecd81aa39bb.

The analytical methods and limits (limit of detection and quantification) are described in (Bemrah et al 2014).

2.1. Pre-processing of concentration data

Left censored data (concentration value below the analytical limits) were managed under 3 hypotheses:

The lowerbound (LB) hypothesis: Concentrations below the LOD (undetected substances) were replaced by 0, and concentrations below the LOQ but above the LOD (known as "traces") were replaced by the LOD value;

The middlebound (MB) hypothesis: Concentrations below the LOD were replaced by ½ LOD, and concentrations below the LOQ but above the LOD were replaced by ½ (LOD+LOQ) ;

Upperbound (UB) hypothesis: Concentrations below the LOD were replaced by the LOD value, and concentrations below the LOQ but above the LOD were replaced by the LOQ.

2.2. Thesaurus

The variables of the dataset and their definitions were presented in the list below:

family: name of the chemical group of the substance;

subst: abbreviated name of the substance;

subst_cn: complete name of the substance;

unit: unit of the mean concentration value of the substance;

mean_CONTA_LB: mean of the concentration values of sub-samples of the analyzed food calculated under the lower bound hypothesis;

mean_CONTA_MB: mean of the concentration values of sub-samples of the analyzed food calculated under the middle bound hypothesis;

mean_CONTA_UB: mean of the concentration values of sub-samples of the analyzed food calculated under the upper bound hypothesis;

Food_code: identification number of the analyzed food;

Food_group: food category of the analyzed food;

Type_foods: analyzed food.