At Your Fingertips: Rapid Retrieval of Product Information from the National Pesticide Information Center
[Article]
Stone, Dave; Ross, Sean
The National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC), a cooperative agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon State University, serves as an objective source of pesticide information for the public and professionals. In 2013, NPIC launched an innovative tool to retrieve pesticide product information called Mobile Access to Pesticides and Labels (MAPL; accessible at www.npic.orst.edu/mapl). MAPL allows users to query pesticide products by multiple parameters, including EPA registration number, active ingredient, product name, and registrant. Important to professionals, MAPL allows users to search for products by pest type and application site. The results can be further stratified by product registration status, transfers, and cancellations. For example, a search of products registered to control "Norway rats" in "food processing areas" yields 61 active products and 983 cancelled products. Once a product is selected, users are able to download the federal label in PDF format. Additional information includes contact information for the manufacturer, synonyms for the chemical active ingredient, signal word, restricted use status, and formulation. When available, NPIC links their active ingredient fact sheets to the selected products to provide users with important health, safety, and environmental information. MAPL was designed to perform optimally on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, as well as displaying consistently on a variety of desktop browsers.