Original reportPesticide Poisoning and Depressive Symptoms among Farm Residents
Section snippets
Selected Abbreviations and Acronyms
CES-D scale = Center for Epidemiologic Depression Scale ORs = odds ratios CI = confidence intervals TRUs = township/range units
Methods
The study population was selected using a multi-stage area sample of farms in an eight county area of northeastern Colorado. The eight-county area included 47% of the total agriculturally employed population in Colorado. Colorado has been mapped using township/range units (TRUs) which consist of 36 sections of land area, each covering 23,040 acres or 36 square miles of land. The number of TRUs sampled from each of the eight counties was selected based on the average acreage of the farms in the
Results
Table 1 describes selected characteristics of the study population. The prevalence of depression by the CES-D scale was 6.0% in this population, 9.5% among females and 3.8% among males. The mean and standard deviation of the CES-D scores were 5.2 ± 6.0 with a range of 0 to 41. The mean age of the study population was 50.7 ranging from 24 to 85 with a standard deviation of 13.6. Sixty-nine individuals (9.2%) reported illness due to pesticide poisoning. Of these 69 individuals, 24 (34.8%) sought
Discussion
Lifetime general population prevalence rates reported among males have been reported to be 12.7% with twelve month rates reported to be 7.7% (17), more than twice the rate found in this farming population. Among females in the general population, lifetime rates were reported to be 21.3% with twelve month rates of 12.9% (18), again higher than those reported among the female farm residents. Differences observed between the farming population and the general population may be related to the
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, U04/CCU806060 and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, R49/CCR811509.
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