Chronic Pesticide Poisoning from Persistent Low-dose Exposures in Ecuadorean Floriculture Workers: Toward Validating a Low-cost Test Battery
Date
2012
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Maney Publishing
Abstract
Chronic pesticide poisoning is difficult to detect. We
sought to develop a low-cost test battery for settings
such as Ecuador’s floriculture industry. First we had to
develop a case definition; as with all occupational diseases
a case had to have both sufficient effective dose
and associated health effects. For the former, using
canonical discriminant analysis we found that adding
measures of protection and overall environmental
stressors to occupational category and duration of
exposure was useful. For the latter, factor analysis suggested
three distinct manifestations of pesticide poisoning.
We then determined sensitivity and specificity
of various combinations of symptoms and simple neurotoxicity
tests from the Pentox questionnaire, and
found that doing so increased sensitivity and specificity
compared to use of acethylcholinesterase alone—the
current screening standard. While sensitivity and specificity
varied with different case definitions, our results
support the development of a low-cost test battery for
screening in such settings.
Description
item.page.type
Journal Article (peer-reviewed)
item.page.format
Text
Keywords
PESTICIDE POISONING, CHRONIC EXPOSURE, NEUROBEHAVIOURAL EVALUATION SYSTEM, BIOMARKER INDICES OF TOXICITY, ECUADOR, FLORICULTURE, VALIDITY OF ACETYLCHOLINE ESTERASE, ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS, GRENOBLES RIVER BASIN, PESTICIDE EXPOSURE, SCREENING, TEST BATTERY
Citation
Breilh, J., Pagliccia, N., & Yassi, A. (2012). Chronic Pesticide Poisoning from Persistent Low-dose Exposures in Ecuadorean Floriculture Workers: Toward Validating a Low-cost Test Battery. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 18, 11-24. https://doi.org/10.1179/1077352512Z.0000000002
DOI
Collections
IDRC Research Results / Résultats de recherches du CRDI
2010-2019 / Années 2010-2019
Agricultural Transformation / Transformation agricole
Environmental Pollution (includes SMEs and Mining) / Pollution de l’environnement (comprend les PME et l'industrie minière)
Latin America and the Caribbean / Amérique latine et Caraïbes
Research Results (Ecohealth) / Résultats de recherches (Écosanté)
2010-2019 / Années 2010-2019
Agricultural Transformation / Transformation agricole
Environmental Pollution (includes SMEs and Mining) / Pollution de l’environnement (comprend les PME et l'industrie minière)
Latin America and the Caribbean / Amérique latine et Caraïbes
Research Results (Ecohealth) / Résultats de recherches (Écosanté)