The capacity of a pesticide to cause acute or chronic injury is referred to as?

• A. Exposure
• B. Toxicity
• C. Hazard
• D. Risk

Answer: (B)

Toxicity is the inherent capacity of a pesticide to cause harm, whether the injury occurs quickly (acute) or over a longer period (chronic). This term describes how poisonous the chemical is by nature, independent of how much exposure someone has or the circumstances of use. That’s why it’s the best choice here: it focuses on the substance’s ability to cause damage.

Exposure refers to the contact that a person or organism has with the pesticide, which influences the actual harm that could occur but isn’t about the chemical’s inherent harm itself. Hazard combines toxicity with potential for exposure to indicate how dangerous the tool could be in a given situation, while risk considers both the hazard and the likelihood or probability that harm will occur under actual conditions. In short, toxicity is the intrinsic property describing harm potential, while hazard and risk depend on how and how much the substance is encountered.