Abstract
AGRICOH is a recently formed consortium of agricultural cohort studies involving 22 cohorts from nine countries in five continents: South Africa (1), Canada (3), Costa Rica (2), USA (6), Republic of Korea (1), New Zealand (2), Denmark (1), France (3) and Norway (3). The aim of AGRICOH, initiated by the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) and coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), is to promote and sustain collaboration and pooling of data to investigate the association between a wide range of agricultural exposures and a wide range of health outcomes, with a particular focus on associations that cannot easily be addressed in individual studies because of rare exposures (e.g., use of infrequently applied chemicals) or relatively rare outcomes (e.g., certain types of cancer, neurologic and auto-immune diseases). To facilitate future projects the need for data harmonization of selected variables is required and is underway. Altogether, AGRICOH provides excellent opportunities for studying cancer, respiratory, neurologic, and auto-immune diseases as well as reproductive and allergic disorders, injuries and overall mortality in association with a wide array of exposures, prominent among these the application of pesticides.
Highlights
In 2006, the US-National Cancer Institute (US-NCI) brought together principal investigators of a number of agricultural cohorts to develop an international agricultural cohort consortium to study cancer and other health outcomes in association with agricultural exposures
A Steering Committee of nine members encompassing a broad spectrum of expertise, in terms of health outcomes, exposures assessment and data pooling experience, will lead the discussion on issues related to AGRICOH during and in between annual meetings and will guide the development of future AGRICOH activities
Eighteen research concepts for data pooling were discussed during the AGRICOH Workshop at International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in October 2010 involving the study of cancer, respiratory, neurologic and other health outcomes in association with pesticides, organic dust and other exposures
Summary
Agricultural worker populations in many countries show distinctive exposure and disease profiles. Studies of agricultural populations are of great interest in their own right (i.e., agricultural workers make up a large proportion of the working population worldwide), but they contribute to a better understanding of disease risks associated with pesticides, other chemical, biological, and physical hazards for the general population because those exposures occur outside agriculture. These studies are suited to identify factors that may protect against particular types of cancer as well as allergies and other non-malignant conditions. Studies of agricultural populations have the potential to inform effective interventions to reduce disease burden in the general population
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