| Studying Health Outcomes in Farmworker Populations Exposed to Pesticides Linda A. McCauley,1 W. Kent Anger,2 Matthew Keifer,3 Rick Langley,4 Mark G. Robson,5 and Diane Rohlman2 1University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; 2Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon, USA; 3University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA; 4North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; 5University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, New Jersey, USA Abstract
A major goal of studying farmworkers is to better understand how their work environment, including exposure to pesticides, affects their health. Although a number of health conditions have been associated with pesticide exposure, clear linkages have yet to be made between exposure and health effects except in cases of acute pesticide exposure. In this article, we review the most common health end points that have been studied and describe the epidemiologic challenges encountered in studying these health effects of pesticides among farmworkers, including the difficulties in accessing the population and challenges associated with obtaining health end point data. The assessment of neurobehavioral health effects serves as one of the most common and best examples of an approach used to study health outcomes in farmworkers and other populations exposed to pesticides. We review the current limitations in neurobehavioral assessment and strategies to improve these analytical methods. Emerging techniques to improve our assessment of health effects associated with pesticide exposure are reviewed. These techniques, which in most cases have not been applied to farmworker populations, hold promise in our ability to study and understand the relationship between pesticide exposure and a variety of health effects in this population. Key words: biomarkers, cancer, epidemiology, health outcomes, immigrants, neurobehavioral, neuropathy, pesticides. Environ Health Perspect 114: 953–960 (2006) . doi:10.1289/ehp.8526 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 16 February 2006]
This article is part of the mini-monograph "Farmworker Exposure to Pesticides: Methodological Issues for the Collection of Comparable Data." Address correspondence to L.A. McCauley, School of Nursing 427L, 420 Guardian Dr., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6096 USA. Telephone: (215) 898-9160. Fax: (215) 898-3056. E-mail: lmccaule@nursing.upenn.edu We acknowledge funding from R13 ES/OH013378 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and CropLife American Inc. that made this work possible. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 11 July 2005 ; accepted 26 January 2006.
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