Mcr. Alavanja et al., Characteristics of pesticide use in a pesticide applicator cohort: The Agricultural Health Study, ENVIR RES, 80(2), 1999, pp. 172-179
Data on recent and historic pesticide use, pesticide application methods, a
nd farm characteristics were collected from 35,879 restricted-use pesticide
applicators in the first 2 years of the Agricultural Health Study, a prosp
ective 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 "lic
ensed"; for ease of reference the term license will be used for both states
in this paper.) Commercial applicators (studied in Iowa only) apply pestic
ides more days per year than private applicators in either state. When the
types of pesticides being used by different groups are compared using the S
pearman coefficient of determination (r(2)), we find that Iowa private and
Iowa commercial applicators tend to use the same type of pesticides (r(2) =
0.88). White and non-white private applicators tended to use the same type
of pesticides (North Carolina r(2) = 0.89), as did male and female private
applicators (Iowa r(2) = 0.85 and North Carolina r(2) = 0.84). There was l
ess similarity (r(2) = 0.50) between the types of pesticides being used by
Iowa and North Carolina private applicators. A greater portion of Iowa priv
ate applicators use personal protective equipment than do North Carolina pr
ivate 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 gro
ups. (C) 1999 Academic Press.