RISK FACTORS OF INFERTILITY CASES AMONG SHALLOT FARMERS

Abstract

The result from preliminary survey showed that the prevalence of couples in childbearing age who used pesticide excessive in the shallot farming and did not have offspring for >1 year in Pamulihan Village, Larangan Subdistrict, Brebes was 33%.This study aimed to analyze occurrence of male infertility according to their practices on pesticide use and zinc-containing diets. The design study was case-control and data was collected by using the standardized questionnaires. From total of 81 cases and 581 control males, respondents of 51 cases and 51 controls were selected with random sampling method. The investigators measured the use of pesticides, personal protective equipment, practices on the daily use of clothing, handwashing after spraying, and zinc intake. The multivariate analysis result indicated that the variables that exhibited a significant effect were the frequency of pesticide spraying in a week (OR: 2. 663 (CI=1.138–6.233 )), spraying against the wind direction (OR:0.180 (CI = 0.033–0.971)), and repeated spraying (OR: 0.346 (CI =0.146–0.819)). Although factor farmers worked more than six hours per day, practiced re-spraying, consumed fertility-enhancing foods and used the PPE were identified as a significant risk factor of infertility in univariate analysis, the association becomes disappeared in multivariate analysis. It might be due to multiple combination effect between variables. Frequency of pesticide spraying in a week was the variable with the highest effect, which is farmers who sprayed the pesticide on the red shallot >3 times per week were inclined in infertile three times higher.