Instrument design to assess indirect dermal exposure to pesticides in horticultural families of the green belt of Córdoba

Abstract

The farm, the place of life and work for horticultural families (HF), constitutes an indivisible unit of productive and reproductive processes. Evidence already reported indicates that this space becomes a scenario of continuous exposure to pesticides for its inhabitants, product of the daily transit between the farm and home, and the circulation and accumulation of pesticides on various surfaces and environmental matrices. It is also known that the skin is the main route of entry of these toxins to the body. Specifying spaces and routes related to the use and circulation of pesticides and people in the farm, provides an indirect measure of dermal exposure to them. 

The aim was to expose an instrument designed to assess the potential dermal exposure to pesticides in horticultural farms of the green belt of Córdoba (GBC).

Within the framework of an intersectoral project (PIODO-2018, Ministery of Science and Technology, Province of Córdoba, participating institutions: O-AUPA - INTA, DiPAF, SAF, FCA – UNC, GEACC – UNC, FAC – UCC, INVIHAB – FAUD – UNC, FAA, APRODUCO, FONAF), the "Horticultural Sketch" (HS) was designed and tested: a grid template with a scale of 10 meters, to graphively participate with a member of the farm, common spaces that represent sites for storage, handling and / or circulation of pesticides, through Preset icons (warehouses, laundry rooms, pens, external toilets, bodies of water, cultivated area and housing, among others). In order to validate the precision of the distances between icons graphed in the HS, they were relieved on the field with metallic tape measure by Agricultural Engineers.

The HS allows to objectify the location of places associated with the use and circulation of pesticides in the daily paths of the HF, strengthening the evidence about the interaction between spaces and work and family activities, thus contributing to the understanding of generating dynamics of potential dermal exposure to pesticides for its members.

We are currently working on the validation of the measures that arise from what is plotted in the CH, based on those measurements in the field. The designed instrument provides a new possibility to assess the potential dermal exposure to pesticides and generate tools for their prevention in context.