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A2826 - Residential Proximity to Agricultural Use of Sulfur and Fumigants and Respiratory Health in 7-Year Old Children
Author Block: R. Gunier1, A. Bradman1, K. G. Harley1, J. R. Balmes2, R. Ranaan3, B. Eskenazi1; 1School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, 2UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, 3Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel.
Objectives: To examine the relationship between residential proximity to agricultural use of sulfur and fumigants and respiratory symptoms and lung function in 7-year old children. Adverse respiratory effects have been reported in pesticide applicators, but the effect on residential populations, and especially on children living in proximity to treated fields, is not known. Methods: Participants were 294 children living in the agricultural Salinas Valley, California and enrolled in the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children Of Salinas (CHAMACOS) study. We obtained information on respiratory symptoms and asthma medication use from maternal questionnaires and children performed spirometry to determine the forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC), and forced expiratory flow 25-75% (FEF25-75) at 7-years of age. We estimated agricultural sulfur use within 0.5 and 1 km and fumigant use within 3, 5 and 8 km of residences during pregnancy, from birth to age 7, and for the year prior to pulmonary evaluation using California’s Pesticide Use Report data. We evaluated the association between prenatal and postnatal residential proximity to agricultural use of sulfur and four frequently applied fumigants (methyl bromide, chloropicrin, metam sodium and 1,3-dichloropropene) with respiratory symptoms and use of asthma medication with logistic regression models and continuous lung function measurements with linear regression models adjusted for confounders. Results: Adverse associations with respiratory outcomes were found for sulfur applications within 0.5- and 1-km radii. Specifically, asthma medication usage and respiratory symptoms increased (OR=3.51, 95% CI=1.50-8.23, p=0.004; OR=2.09, 95% CI=1.27-3.46, p=0.004, respectively) and FEV1 decreased (ß=-0.143, 95% CI=-0.248, -0.039, p=0.008) per 10-fold increase in the estimated amount of sulfur used within 1km of child residence during the year prior to pulmonary evaluation. There were no significant associations between residential proximity to use of fumigants and respiratory symptoms or use of asthma medication. We did not observe any adverse relationships between residential proximity to fumigant use and lung function measurements. Unexpectedly, we observed suggestive evidence of improved FEV1 and FEF25-75 with higher use of methyl bromide and chloropicrin during the prenatal period. For example, for each 10-fold increase in methyl bromide use during the prenatal development period we observed higher FEV1 (β=0.06 L/s; 95% CI: 0.00, 0.12) and higher FEF25-75 (β=0.15 L/s; 95% CI: 0.03, 0.27). These findings should be explored in larger studies. Conclusions: This study suggests that residential proximity to agricultural sulfur use may adversely affect children’s respiratory health.