Since 1987, acute occupational pesticide-related illness and injury has been one of the conditions under surveillance by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH supports these surveillance activities by providing cooperative agreement funding and technical support to state health departments. The program conducting these activities is the Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risks (SENSOR)-Pesticides Program. SENSOR-Pesticides is also partially funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
METHODS:
Cases of acute pesticide-related illness and injury are identified and investigated by agencies in 12 states that participate in the SENSOR-Pesticides program. Data are submitted annually by each state agency to NIOSH, and NIOSH aggregates the data to produce a national database. The SENSOR-Pesticides program also provides timely identification of emerging pesticide problems.
RESULTS:
An update on recent findings and impacts from the SENSOR-Pesticides program will be provided. Among other things, the program highlights the risks faced by agricultural workers. Agricultural workers have a 10-fold higher risk of acute pesticide-related illness and injury compared to workers in other industries. EPA recently adopted enhanced regulations to protect farmworkers, which are the first major enhancements since 1992. These regulatory enhancements were guided, in large part, by SENSOR-Pesticides findings and recommendations. SENSOR-Pesticides findings were also used to support the first major revisions in 40 years to the rule that addresses workers who apply the riskiest pesticides. The proposed revisions to this rule, the Certification of Pesticide Applicators rule, were made available for public comment in August 2015. In 2015 and 2016, findings from the SENSOR-Pesticides program were published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) and peer-reviewed journals. These included inclusion for the first time of data on acute occupational pesticide-related illness in the MMWR Summary of Notifiable Conditions and Disease Outbreaks – United States. This MMWR Summary represents the official statistics for nationally notifiable conditions. In addition, an article on illnesses associated with dimethyl disulfide exposure in Florida has been submitted for publication. Finally, a peer-reviewed journal article describing the characteristics and magnitude of acute pesticide-related illnesses associated with paraquat and diquat exposure is in press at Environ Res.
CONCLUSIONS:
The SENSOR-Pesticides program is considered the principal source of pesticide-related surveillance data in the US, and perhaps the world. It is a vital source of data for EPA to use when assessing whether pesticides are producing any unreasonable harm to human health.