Kromhout Hans, Heederik Dick
Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Scand J Work Environ Health. 2005;31 Suppl 1:33-8; discussion 5-7.
The measurement error in agricultural exposures can be expected to be substantial given the nature of agricultural production. Agricultural work is often seasonal, and exposures to chemical and biological agents vary in a temporal sense due to the task variety and intermittent nature of most agricultural exposures. Exposure patterns are also often complex in terms of the specific agents involved and entail mixed exposure situations. However, farmers often have stable careers and tend to stay in the same working and living environment. Their conservative attitudes also make them reliable sources of past production patterns, machinery, and chemical use. To reduce the measurement error that potentially obscures relations between agricultural exposures and health outcomes, more effort should be put into revealing actual determinants of agricultural exposures. Knowledge of these determinants can be used in questionnaires for retrospective exposure assessment, either in studies of the general population or within agricultural populations, and can be used to predict exposure more reliably.
鉴于农业生产的性质，预计农业暴露中的测量误差会很大。农业工作往往具有季节性，而且由于大多数农业暴露的任务种类繁多且具有间歇性，接触化学和生物制剂的情况在时间上会有所不同。就所涉及的特定制剂而言，暴露模式通常也很复杂，并且存在混合暴露情况。然而，农民通常有稳定的职业，并且倾向于留在相同的工作和生活环境中。他们保守的态度也使他们成为过去生产模式、机械和化学品使用情况的可靠信息来源。为了减少可能掩盖农业暴露与健康结果之间关系的测量误差，应该更加努力地揭示农业暴露的实际决定因素。这些决定因素的知识可用于问卷调查，以进行回顾性暴露评估，无论是在一般人群研究还是农业人群研究中，并且可用于更可靠地预测暴露情况。
