Investigating Seasonal and Occupational Trends of Five Organophosphate Pesticides in House Dust in the Lower Yakima Valley, WA

<bold>Investigating Seasonal and Occupational Trends of Five Organophosphate Pesticides in House Dust in the Lower Yakima Valley, WA</bold> Katie M McDonald Organophosphate pesticides (OPs) are a class of insecticides and pesticides that have become widely used. Adult exposure routes and health effects of OPs have been researched in detail. However, data characterizing chronic low–dose childhood exposures to pesticide sources, such as those that may occur in indirect outdoor and indoor environmental pathways, is limited. This is especially important as childhood age–specific behaviors may predispose young children to chronic and/or increased episodic pesticide exposures. This research characterizes home environment dust as a potential source for indoor pesticide exposure in agricultural communities in the Lower Yakima Valley, located in Eastern Washington. Over the last 13 years, the University of Washington Center for Child Environmental Health Risks Research (CHC) has followed a community-based participatory research (CBPR) strategy in this area to assess and reduce pesticide exposure among children of Hispanic Farmworkers. This research uses dust samples collected in the CHC pesticide research project to identify the episodic nature of OP exposures. The CHC study collected house and vehicle dust samples, urine, saliva, and blood samples from participants across three agricultural seasons throughout the year with known OP application schemes and farmworker work tasks. House dust levels of 5 OPs in this study were found to vary throughout the year based on occupation with farmworkers consistently presenting higher concentrations of OPs. The largest seasonal differences observed occurred from the Harvest–to–Non–Spray and Thinning–to–Non–Spray seasons for Azinphos methyl (AZ), Phosmet (PH), Malathion (ML), Diazinon (DZ), and Chlorpyrifos (CP). House dust levels of OPs were influenced by householder work status in pome and orchard fruit crops, agricultural season, use classification of pesticides, and potential for contact with sprayed fruit and orchard trees dictated by work status. As levels of AZ, PH, ML, DZ and CP in house dust were episodic depending on season, they present episodic exposure risk to populations residing indoors, especially children. This project is supported through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services (Contract No. HHSN267200700023C), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (Award Number 5P01ES009601) and the USEPA (grants RD831709, RD832733, RD83451401). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, or the USEPA.

Author dc:creator

• McDonald, Katie

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Faustman, Elaine M

• agriculture; exposure; farmworker; organophosphate pesticide; pome fruit

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is held by the individual authors.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1773/24214

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.lib.washington.edu:1773/24214