Study of exposure to a lawn herbicide among children and adults in the general public

Occupational And Environmental Health

PURPOSE: The purpose of this capacity development grant is to help establish a new research team (new investigator Scott Venners of Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Health Sciences and Ray Copes of the BC Center for Disease Control) that will begin to conduct population-based health research in British Columbia on residential pesticide use using questionnaires, environmental sampling and biomonitoring of human biological samples.  The funds from the capacity development grant will be used to pay the salary and benefits of two student research assistants to aid in the development and implementation of the initial pilot project which will generate preliminary data and assess the feasibility of data collection methods (questionnaire, collection of dust and urine samples) for a larger scale study.

RESEARCH GAP in BC: Previous epidemiological studies on pesticides in British Columbia have primarily focused on exposures occurring in occupational settings 1-7 or on exposures to persistent organochlorine compounds. 8-10  Non-occupational exposures to non-persistent pesticides among the general public have not been a primary focus of research in British Columbia.  However, concerns about exposures from residential pesticide use are growing among the general public, particularly as they relate to potentially vulnerable populations such as children.

We will investigate whether variability in pesticide use by-laws in southern British Columbia are associated with 2,4-D residues in house dust and the urine of preschool children and their caregivers.  We will select an equal number of municipalities in the Lower Mainland and on southern Victoria Island with and without bylaws banning cosmetic use of pesticides.  Within municipalities, we will use a combination of phone listings and random digit dialing to randomly select residential households with at least one child aged 1.5-5 years.  We will then select one child and caregiver from each household and administer a questionnaire to the caregiver regarding daily activity patterns of caregiver and child, pesticide use history, knowledge and practices related to pesticide bylaws, and other questions.  Additionally, both the selected child and caregiver will be asked to provide a single morning urine sample and we will collect dust from the home’s vacuum cleaner.  We will analyze dust and urine samples for 2,4-D content then compare pesticide exposures in different municipalities.  This project is critical for developing and refining subject recruitment methods, questionnaires, sample collection and storage procedures, and to generate pilot data on quantities and determinants of household pesticide exposures in different municipalities, which will be used to generate future funding.