Relationship Between Pesticide Exposure And Health Status Of Farmers In The Floriculture Greenhouse

Objective: Evaluate the health effects that choronic pesticide exposure brought to the farmers working in the floriculture greenhouse.Methods: A village that floriculture localized was selcted, according to the pesticide use status dividing the people into pesticide used group and pesticide not used group.A survey was conducted to investigate the information of pesticide exposure and self-reported sympotoms.The body check was conducted to 64 exposures and 22 contorls,and a blood sample was spotted to anlysis, which including 7 items of blood routine check;9 items of liver function check;3 items of immune function;7 items of endocrine function;the serum activities of AChE was also detected.Results: The exposure group had a higher male ratio (P＜0．05 ) ,while in the age ,education,smoke and drink condition ,the families number and the local living time of the two group have no difference . 73．4% farmers cultivated area were between 2 acre and 5 acre,most of the land were planting flowers. 76．5% farmers had used pesticides more than 10 years, 53．2% farmers' pesticide spray interval were 5 to 10 days,each spray lasted for 2 to 5 hours. 64．1% farmers worked more than 5 days per week,71．2% farmers will re-entered into the greenhouse in the same day he sprayed . The ratiao that farmers use electrical sprayer is increasing ,31(44．4%) farmers used the electrical sprayer when we surveyed ,10 of them were startred using it in the half year before the survey.67．2% farmers store the pesticide in the houses, most of the pesticide were stored in the wooden or tissue pail.Excepting for the difference exsiting in the irritating sympotoms between the two groups (P＜0．05) , the sympotoms reported in the nervous system, muscarineic , nicotinic, respirotory system,digestive system with no difference. Activities of AChE are relatively lower in the farmers who reported have nervous sympotoms (P＜0．05) ; the nervous sympotoms and muscarineic sympotoms reported is the 4．431 times (P＜0．05) and 3．247 times (P＜0．05) in the low AChE group than in the high AChE group.The irritation sympotoms reported in the high exposure group are 4．019 times of the control group; farmers deems that the irritation sympotoms are more or less related to the pesticide exposure. The nervous symptoms are related with the abnormal of T4 levels (P＜0．05, OR = 3．850; P＜0．05, OR = 3．625) ; The nicotinic sympotoms are related with the abnormal levels of the IgM (P＜0．05, OR＝2．179) ; The respiratory symptoms reported are related to the T3 abnormal(P＜0．05, OR = 11．667) .The farmers who drinks were reported have more digestive symptoms (P＜0．05, OR=2．500) and less irritation symotoms (P＜0．05, OR =0．366) .Exposure group have a high abnomalty of ECG (P＜0．05) and lower heart beat rate (P＜0．05) .AChE activities are positive related with RBC,HCT,PLT,TB,GB,IgM,T3 (P＜0．05; P＜0．01) ,and negative related with TSH (P＜0．05) .The liver functional levelsand the immune functional in the exposure group are lower than the control group (P＜0．05) ;while in the blood rutine test and the thyroid hormone with no difference. Thenegative correlation between the exposure levels with total bilirubin and IgM have statisticsignificance (P＜0．05) .Conclusions: Floriculture farmers are long term , altofrequencily and high intensity exposed to the pesticide ,pesticide exposure are affecting to the liver function,immune function and cardiovascular system function.In the self-reported sympotoms ,irritation symptoms are more likely be link to the pesticide use ;although the symptoms reported with no difference in other systems ,but in the individuals with lower acetylcholine esterase activities and higher exposure levels ,the symptoms are reported more.In the individuals with body and blood check abnormal ,the sympotoms also much often reported .The anlysis above shows that except for the direct contact with pesticide are easily cause irritation sympotoms ,other chronic symptoms are not usually reported.but though the body check we can find that before the symptoms reported , the body indicators has changed ,the pesticide exposure has lead some health effects.