Agriculture sector accounts significant numbers of injuries and fatalities in the workplace particularly related to pesticide management. Among three main pathways of pesticide exposure, dermal contact is the most common route, which exposure usually occurs during pesticide mixing/loading, application, harvesting and other farming activities. This review aims to present and discuss several vital components of pesticide dermal exposure among agriculture workers, as well as pesticide application in agriculture sector in Malaysia involving different commodity agriculture sub-sectors. Pesticide exposure was discussed from perspective of three pesticide management activities (i.e. preparation, application and cleaning) that contribute to the risk of exposure through three routes (i.e. emission, deposition, transfer). Moreover, this paper also discussed pesticide dermal exposure risk assessment methods which can be defined into exposure assessment and effect assessment. The exposure rate was affected by various factors such as application equipment, application rate and duration, type of pesticide formulation, pesticide management stage, usage of personal protective equipment, training and aptitude of the applicator as well as environmental factors (i.e. temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction). The factors mention earlier have been used to explain the exposure distribution over different parts of the body and support the fact that pesticide type was not a major factor in total exposure.
Pesticide ; dermal exposure ; exposure risk ; distribution

Chemical Industry ; Humans ; Occupational Exposure ; Risk Assessment

Humans ; Occupational Exposure ; Risk Assessment ; Workplace

Occupational Exposure ; prevention & control ; Risk Assessment ; methods

Automobiles ; China ; Humans ; Occupational Exposure ; Risk Assessment

Occupational Exposure ; prevention & control ; Risk Assessment ; methods

OBJECTIVETo investigate the association between paternal exposure to occupational electromagnetic radiation and the sex ratio of the offspring.

METHODSWe searched various databases, including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, OVID, Bioscience Information Service (BIOSIS), China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals and Wanfang Database, for the literature relevant to the association of paternal exposure to occupational electromagnetic radiation with the sex ratio of the offspring. We conducted a meta-analysis on their correlation using Stata 11.0.

RESULTSThere was no statistically significant difference in the sex ratio between the offspring with paternal exposure to occupational electromagnetic radiation and those without (pooled OR = 1.00 [95% CI: 0.95 -1.05], P = 0.875). Subgroup analysis of both case-control and cohort studies revealed no significant difference (pooled OR = 1.03 [95% CI: 0.99 -1.08], P = 0.104 and pooled OR = 0.98 [95% CI: 0.99 -1.08], P = 0.186, respectively).

CONCLUSIONPaternal exposure to occupational electromagnetic radiation is not correlated with the sex ratio of the offspring.

The negative effects of environmental exposure during pregnancy on fetal growth and children development have been confirmed. It has been found that environmental exposures during pregnancy have a great influence on the growth and development of fetus, birth outcomes and children's psychology, behavior and neural development. In this review, according to different types of environmental exposures, we focused on the key issues of the fetus or children induced by four aspects of environment exposure, including environmental chemicals, unhealthy life styles and behaviors, stress and other risk factors, and discussed the adverse effects of environmental factors on the growth and development of infants, children's psychology, behavior, social and cognitive, such as birth defects, autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, emotional problems, learning disorder and intelligence development and so on. We also suggested that the researches on mechanism of the negative effects of environmental exposure on children's health should be strengthened in the future.
Child ; Child Development ; Environmental Exposure ; Female ; Humans ; Pregnancy ; Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects ; epidemiology ; Risk Factors

Hazardous Substances ; adverse effects ; Humans ; Occupational Exposure ; adverse effects ; Risk

Humans ; Occupational Exposure ; Occupational Health ; Risk Assessment ; Workplace