PREVALENCE OF PESTICIDE TOXICITY AMONG CULTIVATION FARMERS IN SAKON NAKHON PROVINCE

Abstract

This retrospectively descriptive study aimed to investigate the epidemiological prevalence of pesticides poisoning and trend of pesticides toxicity of cultivation farmers during 2016-2018. Subjects were farmers who registered for cultivation of Sakon Nakhon agriculture office. Dataset of pesticide patients were from 43 files with ICD10 codes of T60.0 - T60.9 during the fiscal year 2016 – 2018 from Sakon Nakhon Provincial Public Health Office. The results showed that the prevalence rate from pesticides toxicity among cultivation farmers in Sakon Nakhon Province of 2016–2018 was 78.30, 140.47, and 47.70 per 100,000 farmers, respectively. The top three district of highest prevalence rate in 3 years were Song Dao District, Khok Si Suphan and Chalern Sin which were 628.69, 447.54, 418.38 per 100,000 farmers. Most of them were male farmers (50.51%), age 50 - 59 years (40.67%). The most type of cultivation among cases was rice (88.60%), followed by cassava (7.51 %), and sugar cane (2.33%), respectively. The cultivation area among the majority of cases of pesticides toxicity were less than 10 Rai (42.75%) and 11-20 Rai (26.16%). Pesticides toxicity showed the highest prevalence of organophosphate and carbamate toxicity (T60.0, 64.25%), followed by other types of pesticides and animals poisoning (T60.8, 24.87%), and other non-specific types (T60.9, 8.81%), with the illness code together with allergic dermatitis, not specify the cause (L23.9, 36.11%, and solid or liquid pneumonitis (J69, 30.55%). This study found rice farmers and cassava cultivation had impact from pesticides toxicity. The trend of likely increased prevalence was demonstrated which might cause long-term chronic health effect of farmers. This information is very useful for further studies of health risk assessment on farmer’s exposure to pesticide and identify the associated risk factors in order to prevent exposure and pesticide related diseases.