Investigation of job-related pesticide exposure in the third national health and nutrition examination survey.

The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey gathered health and job data from a sample of the US population. Researchers collected urine samples from a subset of subjects and analyzed it for 12 pesticide residues or metabolites (ie, analytes). They investigated the relationship between the industries and jobs reported and the analytes detected in the urine samples. The authors found an association between several jobs and the concentration for one or more pesticide analytes above the 90th percentile. They applied a job exposure matrix to categorize subjects on their potential for job exposures to pesticides. For the detected analytes, the subjects with the highest potential for occupational exposures to insecticides were more likely to have an analyte concentration above the 90th percentile and to have an average analyte concentration score 30% higher than that of subjects reporting jobs with the lowest exposure potential. These findings indicate that occupational exposure may not be a major source of pesticide exposure among the general population.