Pesticides are used in agriculture, lawn and garden care, pest control, and other applications we encounter in everyday life. But measuring pesticides in food, water, soil, or air tells us what is present in the environment—not necessarily what has entered the body.
That is where biomonitoring can provide another piece of the picture.
By measuring pesticides and their metabolites in biological samples such as urine, researchers can look for direct evidence that exposure has occurred. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses this same general approach in its National Biomonitoring Program, analyzing blood and urine samples to assess exposure to environmental chemicals in the U.S. population.
At Health Research Institute (HRI), our Urine Pesticide Multi-Residue (Urine PMR) Panel applies this concept across multiple pesticide classes, measuring 49 pesticide compounds and exposure markers in a single panel.
After a pesticide enters the body, several things can happen. Some of the original chemical may be eliminated unchanged, while some may be transformed through metabolism into other compounds called metabolites.
Many pesticide compounds and metabolites are eliminated through urine, which is one reason urine has become an important sample type in human biomonitoring research. A recent multiclass pesticide method, for example, used urine to simultaneously quantify 50 pesticide biomarkers across nine pesticide classes using UHPLC-MS/MS.
Urine collection also has practical advantages: it is noninvasive and can provide sufficient sample volume for laboratory analysis. But a urine result should be understood for what it is—a measurement made at a particular point in time. What is detected can be influenced by the pesticide involved, how the body processes it, the timing and frequency of exposure, and when the sample was collected.
One of the most important concepts in pesticide biomonitoring is the distinction between a parent compound and a metabolite.
The parent compound is the original pesticide. A metabolite is a substance produced as that pesticide is transformed or broken down.
Depending on the pesticide, either can serve as a useful exposure marker.
HRI's Urine PMR Panel therefore includes a combination of parent compounds and metabolites. For example, 2,4-D and dicamba can be measured as parent herbicides. Other analytes, such as 3-PBA, are metabolites associated with multiple pyrethroid insecticides.
Sometimes a metabolite can be more specific. 4F-3PBA, for example, is associated with cyfluthrin, while 3-PBA can reflect exposure to several different pyrethroids. In other cases, a metabolite may have more than one possible source, which is important to consider when interpreting a result.
This is why pesticide biomonitoring is not simply a matter of asking, “Was a pesticide detected?” Understanding what was measured and what that analyte represents matters too.
People are not necessarily exposed to environmental chemicals one at a time.
Traditional biomonitoring methods have often focused on individual pesticides or a limited number of pesticide classes. Advances in analytical technology increasingly allow laboratories and researchers to examine multiple classes within a single analysis. Recent research has demonstrated simultaneous measurement of dozens of urinary pesticide biomarkers using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry.
HRI's Urine PMR Panel follows this broader approach.
The panel measures exposure markers representing several pesticide classes, including neonicotinoids, organophosphates, pyrethroids, phenoxy herbicides, triazoles, carbamates, and fungicides, among others.
Rather than focusing on a single pesticide, this approach can provide a broader view of the pesticide exposure markers present in a urine sample.
Finding very small quantities of chemicals in a complex biological sample requires highly selective analytical techniques.
Multi-residue pesticide testing commonly relies on liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Liquid chromatography helps separate compounds in a sample, while tandem mass spectrometry uses their molecular characteristics to identify and quantify targeted analytes.
Modern multiclass methods can achieve this across many chemically different pesticide compounds and metabolites within the same analysis. Method validation is important because urine itself is a complex matrix, and laboratories must account for factors that could interfere with accurate measurement.
For the person receiving a laboratory report, however, the important point is simpler: the laboratory is not merely screening for “pesticides” as a single category. It is looking for specific chemical markers using a targeted analytical method.
This is perhaps the most important part of understanding any biomonitoring result.
Detecting a pesticide or pesticide metabolite in urine provides evidence that exposure has occurred. It does not, by itself, tell us exactly where the exposure came from or whether that exposure will cause an adverse health effect.
CDC makes a similar distinction in its National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. Its biomonitoring data measure environmental chemicals in blood and urine, but the report does not provide health or toxicity information, identify specific products or environmental sources, or establish regulatory recommendations.
Possible pesticide exposures can arise from many sources, including food, agricultural or occupational environments, residential pest control, lawn and garden products, and other uses. When a metabolite can originate from more than one pesticide—or from another environmental source—interpretation requires additional context.
A laboratory result is therefore one piece of information about exposure, not a diagnosis.
“Multi-residue” does not mean “every pesticide.”
Pesticides vary substantially in their chemical properties. A method that works well for one group of compounds may not be the appropriate analytical method for another.
For that reason, HRI's Urine PMR Panel does not include glyphosate and its metabolite AMPA or quaternary ammonium herbicides such as paraquat and diquat. These are available through separate targeted analyses.
This distinction is important when selecting a pesticide test. The question is not simply how many compounds a panel contains, but whether it measures the compounds relevant to the exposure question being investigated.
Environmental testing can tell us what is present in our food, water, soil, or surroundings. Biomonitoring approaches the question from another direction: What can we measure after an environmental chemical has entered the body?
Urinary pesticide testing cannot tell the entire story of an individual's exposure, and a detection alone cannot establish a health effect. But by measuring parent pesticide compounds alongside their metabolites—and looking across multiple pesticide classes—biomonitoring can provide another valuable piece of the exposure picture.
That is the purpose of HRI's Urine Pesticide Multi-Residue Panel: making otherwise invisible pesticide exposure markers measurable.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2024). National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals.
Hakme, E., Poulsen, M. E., & Lassen, A. D. (2024). A comprehensive review on pesticide residues in human urine. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 72(32), 17706–17729.
Jagani, R., Chovatiya, J., Patel, H., Teraiya, S., Pulivarthi, D., & Andra, S. S. (2026). SPE-UHPLC-MS/MS method for simultaneous quantification of 50 pesticide biomarkers across nine current-use chemical classes in human urine. Journal of Xenobiotics, 16(2), 67.
