Objectives

To examine the relationship between residential proximity to agricultural fumigant use and respiratory symptoms and lung function in 7-year old children.

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% (FEF_25–75) at 7-years of age. We estimated agricultural fumigant use within 3, 5 and 8 km of residences during pregnancy and from birth to age 7 using California's Pesticide Use Report data. We evaluated the association between prenatal and postnatal residential proximity to agricultural use of 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

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 FEF_25–75 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 FEF_25–75 (β = 0.15 L/s; 95% CI: 0.03, 0.27). Maternal report of child allergies (runny nose without a cold during the previous year) modified the relationship between FEV₁ and prenatal proximity to methyl bromide use (p = .07) and we only observed higher FEV₁ among children without allergies (β = 0.08 L/s; 95% CI: 0.02, 0.14 for a 10-fold increase in methyl bromide use during the prenatal period).

Conclusions

Residential proximity to agricultural fumigant use during pregnancy and childhood did not adversely affect respiratory health in the children through 7 years of age. These findings should be explored in larger studies.

中文翻译：

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居住在7岁儿童中靠近农业熏蒸剂使用和呼吸健康的位置

目标

检查居住在附近的农家使用熏蒸剂与7岁儿童呼吸道症状和肺功能之间的关系。

方法

参与者为294名生活在加利福尼亚州萨利纳斯山谷农业地区的儿童，并参加了萨利纳斯母亲和儿童健康评估中心（CHAMACOS）的研究。我们从孕产妇调查表中获得了有关呼吸道症状和哮喘药物使用的信息，并且儿童进行了肺活量测定，以确定一秒钟的强制呼气量（FEV ₁），强制肺活量（FVC）和强制呼气流量25-75％（FEF _{25- 75}）的年龄为7岁。我们使用加利福尼亚的《农药使用报告》数据估算了怀孕期间以及从出生到7岁之间在居民的3、5和8公里内的农业熏蒸剂使用量。我们评估了产前和产后住宅附近在农业上使用甲基溴，氯仿，meta钠和1,3-二氯丙烯与呼吸道症状之间的关联以及哮喘药物与logistic回归模型和连续肺功能测量之间的相关性，并针对线性调整模型进行了调整混杂因素。

结果

在居民附近使用熏蒸剂与呼吸系统症状或使用哮喘药物之间没有显着相关性。我们没有观察到住宅附近熏蒸剂使用与肺功能测量之间的任何不利关系。出乎意料的是，我们观察到暗示的证据表明，在产前期使用更多的甲基溴和氯仿，可以改善FEV ₁和FEF _25-75。例如，在产前发育期间，甲基溴使用量每增加10倍，我们观察到FEV ₁更高（β= 0.06 L / s； 95％CI：_0.00、0.12）和FEF _25-75更高（β= 0.15 L / s； 95％CI：0.03，0.27）。母体对儿童过敏的报告（前一年没有流鼻涕的鼻涕）改变了FEV ₁与产前接近使用甲基溴的关系（p = .07），并且我们仅观察到无过敏儿童的FEV ₁更高（β= 0.08 L / s； 95％CI：0.02，0.14，代表产前甲基溴使用量增加了10倍。

结论

孕妇和儿童期在住宅附近使用农业熏蒸剂对7岁以下儿童的呼吸系统健康没有不利影响。这些发现应在更大的研究中加以探索。