Pesticide Exposure In Workers Research Articles

Pesticide exposure of workers in apple growing in France

ObjectiveAlthough apple trees are heavily sprayed, few studies have assessed the pesticide exposure of operators and workers in apple orchards. However, these data are crucial for assessing the health impact of such exposures. The aim of this study was to measure pesticide exposure in apple growing according to tasks and body parts.MethodsA non-controlled field study was conducted in apple orchards in 4 regions of France during the 2016 and 2017 treatment seasons. Workers’ external contamination and their determinants were assessed over 156 working days corresponding to 30 treatment days, 68 re-entry days and 58 harvesting days. We measured pesticide dermal contamination during each task and made detailed observations of work characteristics throughout the day. Captan and dithianon were used as markers of exposure.ResultsThe median dermal contamination per day was 5.50 mg of captan and 3.33 mg of dithianon for operators, 24.39 mg of captan and 1.84 mg of dithianon for re-entry workers, and 5.82 mg of captan and 0.74 mg of dithianon for harvesters. Thus, workers performing re-entry tasks, especially thinning and anti-hail net opening, presented higher contamination, either equal to or higher than in operators. For these last ones, mixing/loading and equipment cleaning were the most contaminating tasks. Most of the contamination was observed on workers’ hands in all tasks, except for net-opening in which their heads accounted for the most daily contamination.ConclusionsThis study highlights the importance of taking indirect exposures into account during re-entry work in apple growing.

Organophosphate and organochlorine exposure in selected horticultural farms in Zimbabwe

The epidemiology of pesticide use and pesticide exposure in the farming communities has been researched on and documented. The results from these studies, conducted in all sectors of agriculture except horticulture show high levels of occupational exposure. We present a pilot study conducted in two horticultural farms in Ruwa and Domboshawa 25 kilometres and 30 kilometres from Harare respectively in 2001.The main objective was to establish the level and prevalence of pesticide exposure in workers in the horticultural industry. Blood samples were collected from 33 workers from the two farms. Cholinesterase activity was measured using the WHO cholinesterase kit and organochlorine residues were analysed using the GC method. Organochlorine residues were detected in the following order of frequency, pp-DDT, 100%; op-DDT, 100%; aldrin, 95%; a-HCH, 100%; dieldrin, 86.4%; heptachlor, 22.7% and opDDD, 18.2% from the blood samples analysed. The ppDDT isomer was the major contributing isomer to the sumDDT. The two isomers a- and ß-HCH were also detected in the samples analysed and the former being the major contributing isomer to the sum-HCH. In Ruwa the exposed subjects had higher DDT blood levels than the control group though this was not statistically significant (p=0.1855). There was also no significant difference in the mean DDE levels of the exposed group and the control group (p=0.6851). Significant differences were however noted in the mean blood levels of a-HCH (p=0.007) and aldrin (p=0.0187). In Domboshawa there were no significant differences in the mean blood levels of organochloride residues between the exposed and the control. No significant depression of the cholinesterase activity was observed. The results demonstrated a high level of pollution of human blood with organochlorine residues. The pollution was due to both occupational and environmental exposure. Keywords: Organochlorine, pesticide exposure, horticulture