Usefulness of two indexes to assess the occupational pesticide exposure and their association with effect biomarkers

FERNANDEZ, RICARDO; BUTINOF, MARIANA; LERDA, DANIEL; FILIPPI, IOHANNA; DIAZ, MARÍA DEL PILAR

Roma

Congreso; 28th Annual Conference International Society for Environmental Epidemiology; 2016

International Society for Environmental Epidemiology

Usefulness of two indexes to assess the occupational pesticide exposure and their association with effect biomarkersIntroduction: pesticides are an important aspect of agricultural practices in developed and developing countries and, despite the technological advances, the increase yields were achieved through the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Terrestrial pesticides applicators deal the highest levels of exposure. So the assessment of pesticides exposure through the characterization of personal and contextual factors and the detection of indicators of their potential health effects are determinants to think out preventive proposals adapted to the local context. Objective: classify pesticides applicators into percentile of exposure indexes, exposure intensity and accumulated exposure, and associate those levels of exposure with perceived health and effect biomarkers. Methods: a questionnaire, including bio-socio-cultural characteristics and perceived health symptoms was applied and effect biomarkers were measured (butirylcholinesterase, comet assay, micronuclei and chromosomal aberrations). To estimate the associations between pesticides exposure and health results different generalized linear models were fitted. Results: higher levels of the indexes were associated with lower levels of the enzymatic activity, showing the usefulness of the indexes to discriminate groups with different exposure levels and reflecting an advance in the field of surveillance tools. Higher levels of genotoxic damage were found among the applicators, but its damage was not correlated with the indexes. This could indicate how early the damage is installed. Conclusions: chronic exposures to low-doses of pesticides mixtures address toxicological interactions making difficult to choose an appropriate effect biomarker. The Argentinean regulation law, recommends the annual measurement of the enzymatic activity, according to our results, just one measure of this biomarker does not has a meaningful result, it is necessary to have, unless, a basal or previous level of the enzyme activity.