Measuring success in a pesticide risk reduction program among migrant farmworkers in Colorado.

BACKGROUND: Farmworkers in the US largely consist of young undocumented Hispanics with a median education of 6 years and limited English skills. The High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety bilingual pesticide risk reduction program, which complied with the Worker Protection Standard for migrant farmworkers was evaluated. METHODS: A pretest/posttest comparison of farmworkers (n = 152) assigned to either the experimental or control group was used. Independent variables included demographics, agricultural experience, and health locus of control. Dependent variables were pesticide knowledge, safety risk perception (SRP), and safety-behavior outcomes. RESULTS: The bilingual pesticide program effectively increased farmworker's pesticide knowledge (P = 0.0001), SRP (P = 0.0001), and two (out of four) behavior outcomes. Workers with external health locus of control were less likely to adopt safety behaviors (P = 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The cognitive decision-making process whereby farmworkers' readiness to change and permanently adopt safety behaviors was supported by the pesticide program. Our results support the need for long-term sustained bilingual, intervention programs that demonstrated effectiveness using integrative methodology.

Total dust, respirable dust, and microflora toxin concentrations in Colorado corn storage facilities.

To aid in the process of characterizing corn dust exposures on farms and in elevators in northeastern Colorado, several parameters were examined. Total dust and respirable dust samples were collected and evaluated. Potentially dangerous dust components evaluated were respirable silica, endotoxin, and mycotoxin levels. Many of the total dust samples (58%) would have exceeded 8-hour time-weighted average (TWA) had sampling been conducted for 8 hours; on farms the operation takes between two and four hours. The same statement may be made for respirable dust samples collected for this project. Nearly 33 percent of the respirable dust samples collected would have exceeded the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) TWA had sampling been conducted over an 8-hour period. Respirable silica standards were exceeded at 25 percent of the sampling locations. Presence of mycotoxins at all sites was confirmed by the use of ELISA kits. The most significant finding of this study was high levels of endotoxin at several of the sampling sites. Eighty-five percent of the sampling locations had endotoxin levels above 500 EU/m3. One location, Farm 4, had endotoxin levels of above 1.7 million EU/m3.

Evaluation of airborne dust and endotoxin in corn storage and processing facilities in Colorado.

The main objectives of this research were to determine what aerosols were present by taking total dust (TD) samples and thoracic particulate mass samples (TPM) on farms and in grain elevators. Cascade impactors were used to characterize size distributions of dust and endotoxins at each site. Total dust concentrations on farms had a geometric mean 3.4 mg/m3 and 3.3 mg/m3 in elevators. The geometric mean (GM) concentrations for the TPM were 2.4 mg/m3 on farms and 1.0 mg/m3 in elevators. Endotoxin concentrations as geometric means were alarming at 3175 EU/m3 total dust and 983 EU/m3 by TPM on farms. In elevators, the GM concentrations for endotoxins were 2534 EU/m3 total dust, and 526 EU/m3 by TPM. The mass median aerodynamic diameter (MMAD) for endotoxins on farms was 8.0 microm and 6.5 microm in elevators. The paired t-test was applied to the log ratios of endotoxin concentrations (EU/m3) and dust concentrations (mg/m3), for paired samples of the TD and TPM. A higher content of endotoxins was associated with TPM for farms but not elevators. It was concluded that although the TPM fraction (dust) may represent a small part of the total mass, the aerosol size is optimum for deposition in the lung's tubular airways, and might cause airway inflammation due to the endotoxins. The TPM fraction of corn dust represents the best measure of exposure with regard to the potential development of long-term airways inflammation, and the potential of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among chronically exposed workers. All endotoxin concentrations were well above recommended exposure levels of several researchers familiar with endotoxin health effects.