The Safe Use of Pesticides: A Risk Assessment Procedure for the Enhancement of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Management

Fargnoli, Mario; Lombardi, Mara; Puri, Daniele; Casorri, Laura; Masciarelli, Eva; Mandić‐Rajčević, Stefan; Colosio, Claudio

doi:10.3390/ijerph16030310

Cited by 44 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 81 publications

(111 reference statements)

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“…In addition, such an approach fits well with the analysis of work activities related to the use of pesticides, where the combined use of toxic products and dangerous equipment exposes farmers to different and multifaceted types of errors and risks, while requiring compliance to an interwoven combination of mandatory requirements [80]. To the authors' knowledge, this study represents a novelty in the sector, and can be considered as a basic framework for further and more detailed analyses.…”

Section: Research Insightsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Applying Hierarchical Task Analysis to Depict Human Safety Errors during Pesticide Use in Vineyard Cultivation

2019

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The use of pesticides in agriculture is a significant problem at a global level, not only from an environmental perspective but also from the farmers’ health and safety point of view. In the literature, several studies have discussed the safe behavior and risk perception of farmers. However, human errors when dealing with pesticides and the related work equipment are rarely considered. To reduce this research gap, a study of the human safety errors in pesticide use based on hierarchical task analysis is proposed. In particular, such a bottom-up approach was applied to vineyard cultivation and considered all the activities that operators carry out when using pesticides. The results of this study showed that most of the identified human errors were action errors, i.e., potential failures of the operator in completing the activity successfully. In addition, retrieval and checking errors resulted in being rather common. These outputs shed light on the gap between the information received and the practical need for operators to reduce their failure to perform specific activities. Therefore, while the present study augments current knowledge on the safe use of pesticides, further research is needed to address human errors in agricultural activities, thus extending these results to a larger sample size as well as to other cultivation types.

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Section: Research Insightsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Applying Hierarchical Task Analysis to Depict Human Safety Errors during Pesticide Use in Vineyard Cultivation

2019

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“…By contrast, Grimbuhler and Viel [ 45 ] developed a specific SC questionnaire aimed at investigating the implementation of best practices when applying pesticides in vineyards, due to the peculiarities and specific risks related to this type of activity [ 59 ]. This questionnaire consists of 20 items grouped into the following seven main SC aspects: Management commitment; Communication and feedback; Rules and best practices; Knowledge; Safety compliance; Safety participation; Teamwork climate.…”

Section: Background Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

NOSACQ-50 for Safety Climate Assessment in Agricultural Activities: A Case Study in Central Italy

Fargnoli

Lombardi

2020

IJERPH

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Safety climate assessment has been recognized as a powerful tool to bring to light workers’ perceptions related to safety practices, attitudes and behaviors at the workplace. Accordingly, its investigation can provide useful information about safety problems within a company before accidents occur. In literature, numerous studies can be found investigating safety climates in different types of industry. However, safety climate assessment in agricultural activities is addressed scarcely, even though agriculture represents a very hazardous sector. To reduce this gap, the present study proposes an investigation of safety climate among farmers by means of the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50). The results of the survey brought to light a low level of safety perception of the interviewed sample, especially as concerns safety commitment and risk-taking attitudes. In particular, a different attitude toward safety issues has been registered depending on both the position and gender of the interviewed farmers. Overall, the output of this cross-sectional analysis adds to the current literature by expanding knowledge of safety climate among farmers, representing a baseline for further investigations based on human-centered approaches to enhance safety in agriculture and consequently social and workplace aspects of sustainable agricultural systems.

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“…The Data Collection Sheet that was used in this study has been published previously [18]. It was based on a literature review regarding the main determinants of pesticide exposure to be considered for the creation of a simple tool for estimate pesticide exposure and the related risk in typical agriculture scenarios [2,26]. It contains all of the questions necessary for identifying the agricultural enterprise addressed (usually a small-size enterprise) and its main profile.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methods for the Identification of Outliers and Their Influence on Exposure Assessment in Agricultural Pesticide Applicators: A Proposed Approach and Validation Using Biological Monitoring

Mandić‐Rajčević

Colosio

2019

Toxics

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The “patch” approach for skin exposure assessment can easily be combined with biological monitoring in real-life pesticide studies. Nevertheless, this approach is sensitive to outliers, with values markedly deviating from other members of the sample, which can result in a gross overestimation of exposure. This study aimed at developing methods for outlier identification and validating them while using biological monitoring. Twenty-seven workers applying mancozeb in Italian vineyards participated in this study. Their skin exposure was estimated while using the patch methodology, while ethylene-thiourea (ETU) was measured in the 24-h post-exposure urine as a biomarker of exposure. The outliers were detected using methods that were based on the multiplication of the median, the median absolute deviation, and boxplots. The detection rate varied between 2.3% and 17.3%. The estimated median skin exposure of 3.2 μg was reduced to 1.2 μg when the modified Z score was used. The highest reduction in the skin exposure was above 54 μg. The use of the modified Z score for outlier detection resulted in an increase in the correlation coefficient between the skin exposure and the urine ETU levels from 0.46 to 0.71, which suggested the validity of the approach. Future studies should standardize and improve the methods for pesticide exposure and risk assessment.

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The Safe Use of Pesticides: A Risk Assessment Procedure for the Enhancement of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Management

Cited by 44 publications

References 81 publications

Applying Hierarchical Task Analysis to Depict Human Safety Errors during Pesticide Use in Vineyard Cultivation

Applying Hierarchical Task Analysis to Depict Human Safety Errors during Pesticide Use in Vineyard Cultivation

NOSACQ-50 for Safety Climate Assessment in Agricultural Activities: A Case Study in Central Italy

Methods for the Identification of Outliers and Their Influence on Exposure Assessment in Agricultural Pesticide Applicators: A Proposed Approach and Validation Using Biological Monitoring

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