163 research outputs found
Atrazine and cancer incidence among pesticide applicators in the agricultural health study (1994-2007).
No full textAtrazine is a triazine herbicide used widely in the United States. Although it is an animal carcinogen, the mechanism in rodents does not appear to operate in humans. Few epidemiologic studies have provided evidence for an association
Environ Health Perspect
No full textBackground:Occupational pesticide use is associated with lung cancer in some, but not all, epidemiologic studies. In the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), we previously reported positive associations between several pesticides and lung cancer incidence.Objective:We evaluated use of 43 pesticides and 654 lung cancer cases after 10 years of additional follow-up in the AHS, a prospective cohort study comprising 57,310 pesticide applicators from Iowa and North Carolina.Methods:Information about lifetime pesticide use and other factors was ascertained at enrollment (1993\ue2\u20ac\u201c1997) and updated with a follow-up questionnaire (1999\ue2\u20ac\u201c2005). Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusting for smoking (smoking status and pack-years), sex, and lifetime days of use of any pesticides.Results:Hazard ratios were elevated in the highest exposure category of lifetime days of use for pendimethalin (1.50; 95% CI: 0.98, 2.31), dieldrin (1.93; 95% CI: 0.70, 5.30), and chlorimuron ethyl (1.74; 95% CI: 1.02, 2.96), although monotonic exposure\ue2\u20ac\u201cresponse gradients were not evident. The HRs for intensity-weighted lifetime days of use of these pesticides were similar. For parathion, the trend was statistically significant for intensity-weighted lifetime days (p = 0.049) and borderline for lifetime days (p = 0.073). None of the remaining pesticides evaluated was associated with lung cancer incidence.Conclusions:These analyses provide additional evidence for an association between pendimethalin, dieldrin, and parathion use and lung cancer risk. We found an association between chlorimuron ethyl, a herbicide introduced in 1986, and lung cancer that has not been previously reported. Continued follow-up is warranted.Citation:Bonner MR, Beane Freeman LE, Hoppin JA, Koutros S, Sandler DP, Lynch CF, Hines CJ, Thomas K, Blair A, Alavanja MCR. 2017. Occupational exposure to pesticides and the incidence of lung cancer in the Agricultural Health Study. Environ Health Perspect 125:544\ue2\u20ac\u201c551;\ue2\u20ac\u201ahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP456P30 CA086862/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United StatesZ01 CP010119/CP/NCI NIH HHS/United StatesZ01 ES049030/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/United States27384818PMC538199
Environ Health Perspect
No full textBackground:Growing evidence suggests that pesticide use may contribute to respiratory symptoms.Objective:We evaluated the association of currently used pesticides with allergic and non-allergic wheeze among male farmers.Methods:Using the 2005\ue2\u20ac\u201c2010 interview data of the Agricultural Health Study, a prospective study of farmers in North Carolina and Iowa, we evaluated the association between allergic and non-allergic wheeze and self-reported use of 78 specific pesticides, reported by \ue2\u2030\ua5 1% of the 22,134 men interviewed. We used polytomous regression models adjusted for age, BMI, state, smoking, and current asthma, as well as for days applying pesticides and days driving diesel tractors. We defined allergic wheeze as reporting both wheeze and doctor-diagnosed hay fever (n = 1,310, 6%) and non-allergic wheeze as reporting wheeze but not hay fever (n = 3,939, 18%); men without wheeze were the referent.Results:In models evaluating current use of specific pesticides, 19 pesticides were significantly associated (p < 0.05) with allergic wheeze (18 positive, 1 negative) and 21 pesticides with non-allergic wheeze (19 positive, 2 negative); 11 pesticides were associated with both. Seven pesticides (herbicides: 2,4-D and simazine; insecticides: carbaryl, dimethoate, disulfoton, and zeta-cypermethrin; and fungicide pyraclostrobin) had significantly different associations for allergic and non-allergic wheeze. In exposure\ue2\u20ac\u201cresponse models with up to five exposure categories, we saw evidence of an exposure\ue2\u20ac\u201cresponse relationship for several pesticides including the commonly used herbicides 2,4-D and glyphosate, the insecticides permethrin and carbaryl, and the rodenticide warfarin.Conclusions:These results for farmers implicate several pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural and residential settings with adverse respiratory effects.Citation:Hoppin JA, Umbach DM, Long S, London SJ, Henneberger PK, Blair A, Alavanja M, Beane Freeman LE, Sandler DP. 2017. Pesticides are associated with allergic and non-allergic wheeze among male farmers. Environ Health Perspect 125:535\ue2\u20ac\u201c543;\ue2\u20ac\u201ahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP315Z01 CP010119/CP/NCI NIH HHS/United StatesZ01 ES025041/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/United States27384423PMC538198
Characteristics of Pesticide Use in a Pesticide Applicator Cohort: The Agricultural Health Study
No full textData on recent and historic pesticide use, pesticide application methods, and farm characteristics were collected from 35,879 restricted-use pesticide applicators in the first 2 years of the Agricultural Health Study, a prospective study of a large cohort of private and commercial licensed pesticide applicators that is being conducted in Iowa and North Carolina. (In Iowa, applicators are actually “certified,” while in North Carolina they are “licensed”; for ease of reference the term license will be used for both states in this paper.) Commercial applicators (studied in Iowa only) apply pesticides more days per year than private applicators in either state. When the types of pesticides being used by different groups are compared using the Spearman coefficient of determination (r2), we find that Iowa private and Iowa commercial applicators tend to use the same type of pesticides (r2=0.88). White and nonwhite private applicators tended to use the same type of pesticides (North Carolinar2=0.89), as did male and female private applicators (Iowar2=0.85 and North Carolinar2=0.84). There was less similarity (r2=0.50) between the types of pesticides being used by Iowa and North Carolina private applicators. A greater portion of Iowa private applicators use personal protective equipment than do North Carolina private applicators, and pesticide application methods varied by state. This heterogeneity in potential exposures to pesticides between states should be useful for subsequent epidemiologic analyses using internal comparison groups.This article is published as Alavanja, Michael CR, Dale P. Sandler, Cheryl J. McDonnell, Charles F. Lynch, Margaret Pennybacker, Shelia Hoar Zahm, David T. Mage, William C. Steen, Wendy Wintersteen, and Aaron Blair. "Characteristics of pesticide use in a pesticide applicator cohort: the Agricultural Health Study." Environmental research 80, no. 2 (1999): 172-179. doi: 10.1006/enrs.1998.3888. Posted with permission.</p
Environ Health Perspect
No full textBackground:Increased pesticide concentrations in house dust in agricultural areas have been attributed to several exposure pathways, including agricultural drift, para-occupational, and residential use.Objective:To guide future exposure assessment efforts, we quantified relative contributions of these pathways using meta-regression models of published data on dust pesticide concentrations.Methods:From studies in North American agricultural areas published from 1995 to 2015, we abstracted dust pesticide concentrations reported as summary statistics [e.g., geometric means (GM)]. We analyzed these data using mixed-effects meta-regression models that weighted each summary statistic by its inverse variance. Dependent variables were either the log-transformed GM (drift) or the log-transformed ratio of GMs from two groups (para-occupational, residential use).Results:For the drift pathway, predicted GMs decreased sharply and nonlinearly, with GMs 64% lower in homes 250 m versus 23 m from fields (interquartile range of published data) based on 52 statistics from seven studies. For the para-occupational pathway, GMs were 2.3 times higher [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.5, 3.3; 15 statistics, five studies] in homes of farmers who applied pesticides more recently or frequently versus less recently or frequently. For the residential use pathway, GMs were 1.3 (95% CI: 1.1, 1.4) and 1.5 (95% CI: 1.2, 1.9) times higher in treated versus untreated homes, when the probability that a pesticide was used for the pest treatment was 1\ue2\u20ac\u201c19% and \ue2\u2030\ua5 20%, respectively (88 statistics, five studies).Conclusion:Our quantification of the relative contributions of pesticide exposure pathways in agricultural populations could improve exposure assessments in epidemiologic studies. The meta-regression models can be updated when additional data become available.Citation:Deziel NC, Beane Freeman LE, Graubard BI, Jones RR, Hoppin JA, Thomas K, Hines CJ, Blair A, Sandler DP, Chen H, Lubin JH, Andreotti G, Alavanja MC, Friesen MC. 2017. Relative contributions of agricultural drift, para-occupational, and residential use exposure pathways to house dust pesticide concentrations: meta-regression of published data. Environ Health Perspect 125:296\ue2\u20ac\u201c305;\ue2\u20ac\u201ahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP426Z01 CP010119/CP/NCI NIH HHS/United StatesZ01 ES049030/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/United States27458779PMC533219
Rheumatoid Arthritis in Agricultural Health Study Spouses: Associations with Pesticides and Other Farm Exposures
No full textBackground: Farming has been associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but the role of pesticides is not known. Objectives: We examined associations between RA and pesticides or other agricultural exposures among female spouses of licensed pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study. Methods: Women were enrolled between 1993 and 1997 and followed through 2010. Cases (n = 275 total, 132 incident), confirmed by a physician or by self-reported use of disease modifying antirheumatic drugs, were compared with noncases (n = 24,018). Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using logistic regression models adjusted for age, state, and smoking pack-years. Results: Overall, women with RA were somewhat more likely to have reported lifetime use of any specific pesticide versus no pesticides (OR = 1.4; 95% CI: 1.0, 1.6). Of the 15 pesticides examined, maneb/mancozeb (OR = 3.3; 95% CI: 1.5, 7.1) and glyphosate (OR = 1.4; 95% CI: 1.0, 2.1) were associated with incident RA compared with no pesticide use. An elevated, but non-statistically significant association with incident RA was seen for DDT (OR = 1.9; 95% CI: 0.97, 3.6). Incident RA was also associated with the application of chemical fertilizers (OR = 1.7; 95% CI: 1.1, 2.7) and cleaning with solvents (OR = 1.6; 95% CI: 1.1, 2.4), but inversely associated with lifetime livestock exposure as a child and adult (OR = 0.48; 95% CI: 0.24, 0.97) compared with no livestock exposure. Conclusions: Our results suggest that specific agricultural pesticides, solvents, and chemical fertilizers may increase the risk of RA in women, while exposures involving animal contact may be protective. Citation: Parks CG, Hoppin JA, De Roos AJ, Costenbader KH, Alavanja MC, Sandler DP. 2016. Rheumatoid arthritis in Agricultural Health Study spouses: associations with pesticides and other farm exposures. Environ Health Perspect 124:1728–1734; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP129Version of Recor
Incidence of solid tumours among pesticide applicators exposed to the organophosphate insecticide diazinon in the Agricultural Health Study: An updated analysis
No full textEmerg Infect Dis
No full textIn 2004, 803 rural Iowans from the Agricultural Health Study were enrolled in a 2-year prospective study of zoonotic influenza transmission. Demographic and occupational exposure data from enrollment, 12-month, and 24-month follow-up encounters were examined for association with evidence of previous and incident influenza virus infections. When proportional odds modeling with multivariable adjustment was used, upon enrollment, swine-exposed participants (odds ratio [OR] 54.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] 13.0-232.6) and their nonswine-exposed spouses (OR 28.2, 95% CI 6.1-130.1) were found to have an increased odds of elevated antibody level to swine influenza (H1N1) virus compared with 79 nonexposed University of Iowa personnel. Further evidence of occupational swine influenza virus infections was observed through self-reported influenza-like illness data, comparisons of enrollment and follow-up serum samples, and the isolation of a reassortant swine influenza (H1N1) virus from an ill swine farmer. Study data suggest that swine workers and their nonswine-exposed spouses are at increased risk of zoonotic influenza virus infections
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