• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2003

Objectives: This study was performed to evaluate the pesticide exposure status and acute pesticide poisoning symtoms among agricultural workers at Gangwon-do province alpine area. Alpine area was defined as the area higher than 400m. Methods: We analyzed 257 interviwed questionnaire about pesticide exposure, acute pesticide poisoning symptoms and other variables. Results: The result was shown that agricultural workers at alpine area used more pesticide than general agricultural workers for annual usage days(35.9 days vs 14.4 days), daily usage hours(6.7 hrs vs 2.8hrs, p<0.05). But there was no difference between general and alpine agricultural worker's herbicide exposure. Moreover, the alpine agricultural worker's acute pesticide poisoning symtom score was higher than general agricultural worker's. These difference was also found at result of regression analysis, under control the age, sex, monthly income. Most frequently suffered symptom was headache and dermatological problems. The symptom prevalence of dermatological problem, headache, general weakness, eye irritation, nausea were higher among alpine agricultural workers than general agricultural workers. Conclusions: As a result, agricultural workers at alpine area were more exposed to pesticide and suffered from pesticide poisoning symptoms. To prevent the symptoms and disease from pesticide exposure among agricultural workers at alpine area, more research and political effort will be needed.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.287-291
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• 2005

The development of agricultural technology makes the increasement of pesticide usage. The results of pesticide usage were the increment of agricultural outcomes, but the health hazard was increasing also. Especially, alpine agriculture needs more pesticide than general agriculture and they suffered from more pesticide induced health symptoms. There were no study about the pesticide usage and subjective health status. So, this study was performed to investigate the relationship between pesticide usage and health status. The health status was measured by SF-12. SF-12 was well known health status measurement tool. SF-12 have two components, which were mental component score and physical component score. As a results of analysis, the alpine agricultural workers had higher pesticide exposure index and acute symptom score. As the results of multivariate analysis, physical component score was affected by pesticide exposure, but mental component score was not. Although, this study has many limitations, the result of this study can suggest the need of political advise and the further study.