Abstract: To discuss the health risk associated with dietary exposure to pesticide residues in staple leaf vegetables in Guangdong province, 33 target pesticides in 6 kinds of leaf vegetables collected in 2014 and 2015 were evaluated. Point evaluation and probability assessment with @Risk v5.7 software were used to assess the health risk derived from acute and chronic dietary exposure to pesticides with a detection rate of over 5%. Totally, 22 pesticides were detected with a detection of rate of 1.7%–36.1% and there were 10 pesticides with a detection rate of over 5% including imidacloprid, acetamiprid, carbendazim, chlorantraniliprole, dimethomorph, cyromazine, bifenthrin, difenoconazole, chlorpyrifos and metalaxyl. The risk quotients for acute dietary exposure to these pesticides were between 1.31 and 28.22, while those for chronic dietary exposure were between 0.87 and 70.00 for 99% of consumers, suggesting the health risk associated with their dietary exposure was acceptable. More attention should be paid to the pesticides with high chronic exposure risk quotients such as chlorpyrifos and difenoconazole. Findings from this study provide scientific grounds for risk management of vegetable quality and safety.

Key words: risk assessment, dietary exposure, pesticide residue, leaf vegetable