• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.100-106
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• 2012

Objectives: Diazinon is an insecticide which acts as a contact stomach and respiratory poison, and used throughout the world to control a wide range of sucking and chewing insects and mites on a range of crops. In this study, the airborne diazinon levels were measured for farmers, pest control operaters, landscapers, and agricultural chemicals sellers, and an assessment of the health risk to the workers was presented. The exposure scenario was based on the route of inhalation and skin absorption. The "OSHA Method No. 62" was used to sample and measure the airborne diazinon levels. The skin wipe method was applied to measure the level of the diazinone exposure through the skin. For the determination of exposure scenario, the exposure factors were surveyed for the daily average inhalation rate and the exposure period and frequency and time of diazinone as well as the body weight and lifetime of the workers. The median values of exposure frequency and exposure time were selected after evaluating the validity of those. Methods: The highest level of the diazinon exposure in the air was $107.21ug/m^3$ in farmers, followed by $93.53ug/m^3$ in landscapers, at $31.40ug/m^3$ in pest control operators, and $1.04ug/m^3$ in agricultural chemical seller. The amount of skin absorption was the highest in farmers at 63.39 ug/day, followed by landscapers at 10.47 ng/day, pest control operaters at 4.26 ng/day, and agricultural chemicals sellers at 0.34 ng/day. The hazardous indices calculated using toxicological reference value were 2.79 for pest control operaters, 0.41 for landscapers, 0.07 for agricultural chemicals sellers, and 0.06 for farmers. Conclusions: While the farmers were exposed to the high levels of diazinon through the air and skin, the pest control operaters, landscapers and agricultural chemicals sellers have more the diazinon hazards than the farmer based on the risk assessment in this study.