Impact of Pesticide Exposure among Rural and Urban Female Population. An Overview.

Bouchra Dahiri,José Raúl Aguilera-Velázquez,Isabel Moreno,José Martín-Reina,Juan Bautista,Pilar Carbonero-Aguilar

doi:10.3390/ijerph18189907

Bouchra Dahiri, José Raúl Aguilera-Velázquez + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189907

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Abstract

Pesticides are substances that have become widely used in agriculture and the human exposure to these substances may cause adverse health outcomes. Non-occupational exposure to them can come from many sources, such as food or water. For occupational exposure, many studies have been conducted in men, as they have been mostly in charge of work related to these substances. Nonetheless, the information available concerning the exposure in women is very scarce. In addition, an important differentiation between rural and urban areas has been established, rural areas being known as the most exposed ones due to plantation fields. However, the application of higher concentrations of herbicides in small urban areas is taking a lot of importance currently as well. Regardless of gender, the conditions of exposure, and the environment, the exposure to these pesticides can have different effects on health from early life stages, resulting in different outcomes ranging from neurodevelopmental effects in newborns to different types of cancers. In this review, we discussed the toxicity of the most commonly used pesticides and the main impact on the health of the general population, focusing mainly on the effect in women from both rural and urban areas, and the different stages of development, from pregnancy or lactation to the outcomes of these exposures for their children.

Highlights

Pesticides are a type of intrinsically toxic substances that are widely used in agriculture to protect crops from pests, diseases, and weeds [1]
The otherFor the other one, in which mainly analytical records were included, levels of pesticides detected in the population groups were established, together with the methods used for their determination
A wide variety of results was obtained, all of them establishing that pesticide exposure may occur in different circumstances from occupational to nonoccupational sources, affecting rural population and the urban one, with special interest in vulnerable populations such as pregnant women or children being breast-fed

Summary

Introduction

Pesticides are a type of intrinsically toxic substances that are widely used in agriculture to protect crops from pests, diseases, and weeds [1]. Exposure to pesticides can come from many routes, from non-occupational exposure such as domestic applications or through residues in food and drinking water, to occupational settings due to their extended use in agriculture; respiratory (through inhalation), oral and dermal are the main three sources of exposure [3]. Rural areas have been of great concern due to their proximity to the application site. People residing in those areas have been defined as “residents” or the “persons who live, work or attend a school near crop fields treated with pesticides and whose presence is unrelated to work involving pesticides, but whose position might lead

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