Department of Environmental Health, Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica (National Institute of Public Health), Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.
J Agromedicine. 2011 Apr;16(2):117-26. doi: 10.1080/1059924X.2011.555282.
Practices related to the safe handling of pesticides and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) are largely unknown among agricultural workers in developing countries. The authors obtained information from 99 Mexican agricultural workers (35 women and 64 men) who answered questions on sociodemographic data, agricultural practices, use of pesticides, use of PPE, and risk perception. As expected, men handled pesticides more frequently than women (67% versus 20%). The workers carried out several agricultural tasks, as is customary in the case of fieldworkers who (1) work in small agricultural enterprises; use a great number of pesticide products (59 commercial brands of pesticides, 33 active ingredients, and 20 chemical families); (2) use mostly manual application equipment; (3) have a low rate of correct usage of PPE (2%), which does not vary according to the education level, the time of year, or the risk perception; and (4) have insufficient hygienic practices. In addition, storage of pesticide products and application equipment at home is frequent among this group of workers (42%), and provides a significant source of para-occupational exposure for the workers' families. These results show the need to develop prevention programs to reduce risks posed by pesticides to agricultural workers and their families.
在发展中国家，与安全处理农药和使用个人防护设备（PPE）相关的做法在农业工人中基本不为人知。作者从 99 名墨西哥农业工人（35 名女性和 64 名男性）那里获得了信息，这些工人回答了关于社会人口统计学数据、农业实践、农药使用、PPE 使用和风险感知的问题。不出所料，男性比女性更频繁地处理农药（67%对 20%）。这些工人从事了几项农业任务，这是农业工人的惯例，他们（1）在小型农业企业工作；使用大量农药产品（59 种商业品牌的农药、33 种有效成分和 20 种化学家族）；（2）主要使用手动施药设备；（3）PPE 的正确使用率很低（2%），这与教育程度、一年中的时间或风险感知无关；（4）卫生习惯不足。此外，这组工人经常在家中储存农药产品和施药设备（42%），这为工人家庭提供了一个重要的职业性暴露源。这些结果表明，有必要制定预防计划，以降低农药对农业工人及其家庭构成的风险。
