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Agricultural exposure and asthma risk in the AGRICAN French cohort

2013; Elsevier BV; Volume: 217; Issue: 4-5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.ijheh.2013.08.006

1618-131X

Isabelle Baldi, Céline Robert, Florence Piantoni, Séverine Tual, Ghislaine Bouvier, Pierre Lebailly, Chantal Rahérison,

Indoor Air Quality and Microbial Exposure

Epidemiological studies have reported an increased risk of respiratory diseases in agricultural population, but a protective “farm-effect” has also been reported for asthma. In the AGRICAN cohort, self-reported doctor-diagnosed asthma was analyzed according to allergy, in relation with history of life-time exposure to 13 crops and 5 livestock, pesticide exposure and early life on a farm, taking into account sex, age, education and body mass index. Among the 1246 asthmatics (8.0%), 505 were allergic (3.3%) and 719 non-allergic (4.6%). In multivariate analysis, a significant excess was observed, only for allergic asthma, in vine-growing (OR = 1.43, p = 0.002), fruit-growing (OR = 1.58, p = 0.001), greenhouses (OR = 1.66, p = 0.02), grasslands (OR = 1.35, p = 0.009), beets (OR = 1.52, p = 0.003) and horses (OR = 1.35, p = 0.04). Pesticide use and history of pesticide poisoning were significantly associated with allergic asthma in grassland, vineyards and fruit-growing and with non-allergic asthma in beets. Living on a farm in the first year of life tended to be protective for childhood allergic asthma in farms with livestock (OR = 0.72, p = 0.07) but deleterious in farms with vineyards, fruit or vegetables (OR = 1.44, p = 0.07). In AGRICAN, an increased risk of allergic asthma was observed with crop exposure, pesticide use and early life on a farm, especially in vine-growing, grassland, beets, fruit and vegetable-growing.