The overall goal of this research is to characterize the exposures and associated determinants of disease among populations exposed to toxic chemicals in the agricultural workplace to this end, this Core encourages and facilitates research to assess the contribution of potentially toxic agrochemical exposures to symptoms or disease in the exposed populations. The research involves the interaction of disciplines involved in the epidemiologic study of disease occurrence, exposure assessment and characterization of toxic exposures, effects, and likely routes of transmission. Each project may involve some or all of these components. The interaction of epidemiology with exposure assessment (industrial hygiene) represents a traditional model in occupational/environmental epidemiologic investigations. The integration of laboratory analyses with epidemiologic data, sometimes referred to as molecular or biochemical epidemiology, is also an important approach to studying, the determinants and mechanisms of disease and adverse health effects of exposures. In these studies, the laboratory investigators work with epidemiologists to measure both markers of exposure in biologic specimens, and markers of effect. For example, measurement of organophosphate metabolites in urine is a marker of exposure, while assessment of urinary endocrine markers of reproductive function is a marker of effect. The investigation of dust exposure and pulmonary pathology in lungs from deceased Hispanic males obtained from coroners' cases includes both biomarkers of exposure (lung dust content and composition) and effect (pathologic changes in the lung).
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