This application includes a set of sub-studies that will assist a team of researchers, principally from South Africa and Tanzania, with extensive experience in pesticide-related policy and epidemiological research, to plan a larger long-term investigation into the health and economic consequences of pesticide exposure. Externalities related to human health with pesticide usage are typically ignored in national and international agricultural policy, principally because of a lack of health outcome and environmental impact data in developing countries. This project will systematically assemble, through a multi-disciplinary international collaboration, data on which to plan a formal R01 grant application, and develop tools and methods for implementation of the larger study. This will be accomplished through policy research into trends driving pesticide usage in Tanzania and South Africa; by the development of methods to characterize human exposure to pesticides, and tools to assess neurobehavioral and childhood developmental impacts of such exposures appropriate to the local African context; by the conducting of a set of qualitative and quantitative interviews with small farmers to gauge risk perceptions and factors influencing decision-making processes in relation to pesticide use by farmers and by the development and piloting of tools to measure the costs of pesticide usage. The emphasis throughout the project will be on developing robust, valid and reliable methodologies, as well as collecting preliminary prevalence and incidence estimates on which to base an R01 application. Data on risk perceptions, farmer decision-making and on costs will be tested against frameworks suggested in the literature for construct validity. The project will take place in tandem with, and closely integrated with other well-defined capacity building initiatives underway in the Southern African region (parallel Fogarty capacity building grant, and a Fogarty International Research Collaboration Award application) that will see expansion of the analytical capacities of the laboratories of the Peninsula Technion in Cape Town, South Africa and the Tropical Pesticides Research Institute in Arusha, Tanzania, as well as promotion of study towards higher degrees by at least 3 project staff at collaborating institutions. The project's policy focus will enable establishment of networks to facilitate dissemination of findings to policy makers, in addition to typical scientific journal outputs and conference presentations.
| Lekei, Elikana; Ngowi, Aiwerasia V; Mkalanga, Habib et al. (2017) Knowledge and Practices Relating to Acute Pesticide Poisoning Among Health Care Providers in Selected Regions of Tanzania. Environ Health Insights 11:1178630217691268 |
| Lekei, Elikana E; Ngowi, Aiwerasia V; London, Leslie (2016) Undereporting of acute pesticide poisoning in Tanzania: modelling results from two cross-sectional studies. Environ Health 15:118 |
| Lekei, Elikana; Ngowi, Aiwerasia V; London, Leslie (2014) Hospital-based surveillance for acute pesticide poisoning caused by neurotoxic and other pesticides in Tanzania. Neurotoxicology 45:318-26 |
| Lekei, Elikana E; Ngowi, Aiwerasia V; London, Leslie (2014) Farmers' knowledge, practices and injuries associated with pesticide exposure in rural farming villages in Tanzania. BMC Public Health 14:389 |
| Ngowi, A V F; Mbise, T J; Ijani, A S M et al. (2007) Pesticides use by smallholder farmers in vegetable production in Northern Tanzania. Crop Prot 26:1617-1624 |
