Biomarkers of pesticide toxicity among teen farmworkers

描述：（由申请人提供）：每年，成千上万的移民农场工人迁移到太平洋西北部收获浆果作物。这些劳工中有许多是青少年-有些是独自旅行，有些则与家人一起在农田里工作。这些青少年接触农药喷雾（漂移）以及土壤和树叶中的残留物。然而，几乎没有科学证据来确定这一脆弱群体接触农药的可接受水平。据认为，农药对儿童造成的生物风险比对成人高得多，但对这种脆弱性的程度或规模知之甚少。儿童长期接触低剂量农药可能产生的神经毒性是一个重大的公共卫生问题。 此外，可能存在影响青年农业工人职业接触的风险因素，青春期的快速发育期可能会在与农药接触有关的DNA损伤等领域带来额外的风险。我们的跨学科研究团队将使用横断面，重复测量设计来比较青少年农场工人与他们的成年同行和非农业参考群体，以便：1）用农药代谢物的尿生物标志物确定暴露于农业化学品的差异，2）检查尿农药代谢物与神经行为表现之间的关系，和3）确定农药诱导的DNA损伤和氧化应激标志物的年龄相关差异。

DESCRIPTION: (provided by applicant): Each year, thousands of migrant farm workers migrate to the Pacific Northwest to harvest berry crops. A great number of these laborers are adolescents--some traveling alone and others working alongside their families in the agricultural fields. These adolescents are exposed to pesticide spray (drift) and residues in the soil and on foliage. However, little scientific evidence is available to determine acceptable levels of pesticide exposure in this vulnerable population. Pesticides are thought to pose a considerably higher biological risk to children than to adults, but little is known about the extent or magnitude of this vulnerability. The potential of neurotoxicity related to chronic low-dose pesticide exposure in children is a major public health concern. Also, there may be risk factors that influence the occupational exposures of youth agricultural workers, and the period of rapid development during adolescence may introduce added risk in areas such as DNA damage related to pesticide exposure. Our interdisciplinary research team will use a cross-sectional, repeated measures design to compare adolescent farmworkers to their adult counterparts and to non-agricultural referent groups in order to: 1) determine differences in exposure to agricultural chemicals with urinary biomarkers of pesticide metabolites, 2) examine the relationship between urinary pesticide metabolites and neurobehavioral performance, and 3) determine age-related differences in pesticide-induced markers of DNA damage and oxidative stress.