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PESTICIDE EXPOSURE AND POTENTIAL HEALTH EFFECTS IN YOUNG CHILDREN ALONG THE US/MEXICO BORDER
Impact/Purpose:
The overall purpose of the Pesticides in Young Children - Border States program is to describe the relationship of health outcomes in children along the United States and Mexico border to repeated pesticide exposures via multiple sources and pathways. The current effort will conduct additional phase II studies and analyze the data to identify and address critical questions about three major areas: (1) the applicability of pesticide biomarkers for use as markers of exposure, (2) the predictive capability of quesionnaires for estimating exposure, and (3) identification of the most appropriate cohorts to be included in the Phase IIIb studies.
Description:
The pesticides in young children border states program includes a series of studies designed to develop and implement an approach to examine the cumulative risks and potential health effects in children from repeated exposure to pesticides via multiple sources and pathways. Research is being conducted in the U.S.-Mexico Border States of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas as part of the Environmental Health Workgroup on the U.S.-Mexico Border program developed with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). A three phase approach was undertaken to address the project objectives. Phase I was a planning phase and included a review of existing environmental pesticide exposure & health data and identification/review of techniques to measure exposure biomarkers in biological fluids. Geographic Information System (GIS) maps were produced for the border area to delineate the location of agricultural fields, schools, parks, homes, health clinics, and the temporal application of pesticides. In addition, a workshop on health effects assessment related to pesticides in young children was held to recommend health endpoints to be used in the survey. Phase II evaluated the extent and distribution of pesticide exposure in children living in the border region and the identification of children with the highest levels of exposure. The initial Phase II studies have been completed. Data analysis ha shown that additional Phase II studies will be necessary, since the analyses show that the exisiting Phase II studies have not provided a definitive population for the proposed Phase III activities. Phase IIIa would include a more complete monitoring of children classified as "high end exposures" in Phase II. Follow-up on these children would include detailed measurements of their environmental exposure and biological monitoring for levels of metabolites. From this first part of the Phase III effort, a study would be designed to evaluate the relationships between pesticide exposures and selected health outcomes and to define specific hypotheses to be tested. An epidemiological study (Phase IIIb) may then be performed to examine the specific hypotheses about the impact of pesticide exposure on health status/outcome of children. The specific work under this Task will be to complete additional Phase II studies and to model the results of these and other studies to assist in understanding the exposure pesticide exposure of children in the border area.