Exposure to pesticides in adults and children living near agricultural land in the UK

Abstract

S17: Residential exposure to pesticides and health effects; what we know and what we should know, Room 217, Floor 2, August 28, 2019, 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM The evidence for residential exposure to pesticides due to proximity to agricultural land is sparse. Models are used to provide input into regulatory risk assessment approaches to ensure pesticides are used safely. However, as there is limited data, it is also not clear if these models perform appropriately. We carried out a study to investigate residential pesticide exposure using biological monitoring in a number of areas in the UK with variety of arable and fruit crops and compared the results with estimates from models used for regulatory risk assessment. Farmers treating crops with captan, chlormequat, chlorpyrifos or cypermethrin provided spray event information. Adults and children residing within 100m from the sprayed fields provided first-morning void urine samples during and outwith the general spray season. Statistical analyses were carried out to determine if urinary biomarkers of these pesticides were elevated after spray events. In total, 1518 urine samples from 140 participants were available for analyses, consisting of 523 spray event and 995 background samples. For captan and cypermethrin, the proportion of values below the limit of detection was greater than 80%, with no difference between spray event and background samples. For chlormequat and chlorpyrifos, the geometric mean urinary biomarker concentrations following spray events were 15.4 μg/g creatinine and 2.5 μg/g creatinine, respectively, compared with 16.5 μg/g creatinine and 3.0 μg/g creatinine for background samples within the spraying season. Outwith the spraying season, concentrations for chlorpyrifos were the same as those within spraying season backgrounds, but for chlormequat, lower concentrations were observed outwith the spraying season (12.3 μg/g creatinine). Overall, we observed no strong evidence indicative of additional urinary pesticide biomarker excretion as a result of spray events. Consequently, the majority of measured concentrations were well below the predicted concentrations based on the models used for regulatory risk assessment.