ABSTRACT

American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, March 1, 2002
Chemical Predictors of Wheeze among Farmer Pesticide Applicators in the Agricultural Health Study
Jane A. Hoppin, David M. Umbach, Stephanie J. London, Michael C.R. Alavanja, Dale P. Sandler

This paper looks at the role of pesticide exposure and a common respiratory symptom, wheeze, among 20,000 farmers who are licensed pesticide applicators. These farmers are participants in the Agricultural Health Study, an on-going study of approximately 60,000 licensed pesticide applicators and their spouses in Iowa and North Carolina. Pesticide use and wheeze information was obtained using questionnaires completed by the farmers at home. Individuals who used particular pesticides were more likely to wheeze than those who did not use these chemicals. The pesticides most strongly associated with wheeze were paraquat, EPTC, parathion, malathion, and chlorpyrifos. This association could not be explained by other risk factors for wheeze such as age, smoking, asthma and allergy history, or other farm activities such as contact with animals, grains and dusts. The chance of wheezing was greater with more days of application. The herbicides, atrazine and alachlor were associated with wheeze, especially among those with more than 20 application days in a year. All pesticide application methods had an increased change of wheeze , but no significant differences were observed for common crop application methods. Pesticide application to animals was associated with wheeze; the strongest effect was for fogging and misting animals. This analysis is the first to describe chemical-specific contributors to wheeze among farmers. The associations with these pesticides were small, but since farmers are generally healthier than the general population and may avoid exposures and activities that contribute to respiratory and other symptoms, these results suggest that further investigation of these chemicals is warranted. For more information on this paper, please contact Jane Hoppin, ScD at hoppin1@niehs.nih.gov or at (919) 541-7622. For more information on the Agricultural Health Study, please see our website: www.aghealth.org