Aims: To characterize the relationship of subclinical neurologic dysfunction in farmworkers to: chronic pesticide exposure lifestyle factors including alcohol use genetic polymorphisms affecting pesticide metabolism, eg paraoxonase. Accomplishments: The study was conducted at two sites: Apopka is a suburb of Orlando, with a diffuse farmworker community working on many crops, while Pierson is a small rural town with a tightly knit farmworker community working mainly on ferns. In Apopka, 90% of contacted workers were screened and 79% of eligible workers participated in the study; corresponding proportions in Pierson were 94% and 85%. These response rates are similar to what is typically seen in epidemiologic studies with multistage recruiting processes. We enrolled 352 individuals in all. Based on data from the screening interview, 95 of these individuals were unexposed controls and 257 were exposed in one or more categories. We have characterized the outcome variables and their relationship to covariates. Many outcomes appear to be related to variables describing ethnicity, education, and acculturation. Although this was expected for outcomes related to cognitive function, we have found similar relationships with outcomes related to motor or sensory function. This suggests that the covariates may be highly correlated with indices of pesticide exposure, posing a challenge for further analysis. Our next steps will be to define and characterize pesticide exposure variables, and to relate exposure to outcome.
| Kamel, Freya; Rowland, Andrew S; Park, Lawrence P et al. (2003) Neurobehavioral performance and work experience in Florida farmworkers. Environ Health Perspect 111:1765-72 |
| Kamel, F; Moreno, T; Rowland, A S et al. (2001) Recruiting a community sample in collaboration with farmworkers. Environ Health Perspect 109 Suppl 3:457-9 |
