A Pilot Study of Respiratory and Dermal Symptoms in California Cannabis Cultivation Workers.

Cannabis (Cannabis sativa, marijuana) is the largest cash crop in California. While it is difficult to characterize the size of the industry, the total production is estimated at 15 to 16 million pounds per year, with total revenues exceeding $10 billion per year. Despite the huge size and rapid growth of the industry, there has been little research on the health and safety of cannabis workers. The goal of this pilot study was to explore the feasibility of collecting cannabis worker health data with a self-administered survey and to analyze the first systematically collected data on occupational health symptoms among California cannabis cultivation workers. We performed a cross-sectional survey of demographic and job characteristics as well as eye, nasal, respiratory, and dermal symptoms among 29 workers at two cannabis farms in the Sacramento area, California. Most participants were men aged less than 30 years, with 48% of participants self-identifying as non-Hispanic white and 58% reporting at least some college education. The most frequently reported work-related symptom was nasal irritation, and 38% of the participants reported symptoms suggestive of asthma. The participants had a demographic makeup distinct from traditional California agricultural workers, and a very high prevalence of current use of cannabis (93%). The high proportion of respondents with symptoms suggestive of asthma raises concern; sensitization to the cannabis plant has been reported among cannabis workers and users and there are many well-documented agricultural exposures causing asthma and asthma-like syndrome.

Using software-modified smartphones to validate self-reported mobile phone use in young people: A pilot study.

A newly developed smartphone application was piloted to characterize and validate mobile phone use in young people. Twenty-six volunteers (mean age 17.3 years) from France, Spain, and the Netherlands used a software-modified smartphone for 4 weeks; the application installed on the phone recorded number and duration of calls, data use, laterality, hands-free device usage, and communication system used for both voice calls and data transfer. Upon returning the phone, participants estimated their mobile phone use during those 4 weeks via an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Results indicated that participants on average underestimated the number of calls they made, while they overestimated total call duration. Participants held the phone for about 90% of total call time near the head, mainly on the side of the head they reported as dominant. Some limitations were encountered when comparing reported and recorded data use and speaker use. When applied in a larger sample, information recorded by the smartphone application will be very useful to improve radiofrequency (RF) exposure modeling from mobile phones to be used in epidemiological research.