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Injury and Violence Prevention Section
health.injuryprevention@state.mn.us

Contact Info

Injury and Violence Prevention Section
health.injuryprevention@state.mn.us

Acute Work-Related Pesticide Associated Illness and Injury Reported to Poison Control Centers

When used appropriately, pesticides provide a variety of benefits to society: increasing crop production, preserving produce, and controlling insect and exotic species infestations. However, exposure to pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides) may also confer a health risk to people.  Consequently, they are heavily regulated to ensure proper usage and application. Even with heavy regulation, incidents of exposure through misuse or improper application still occur. Individuals who are mixing, applying, or working in areas that receive pesticide applications are at increased risk of exposure.

This indicator identifies the number and rate of acute work-related poisonings that occur each year due to pesticide exposure based on data from the Minnesota Poison Control Center. This indicator only includes cases that (1) have been recognized as pesticide related, (2) resulted in a call to the Minnesota Poison Control Center to report the incident, and (3) are determined to be work-related. Because many cases of work-related pesticide poisonings may not be reported to the Minnesota Poison Control Center, there is a large undercount in the number of cases. However, this indicator does provide a measure of the magnitude of poisonings that occur each year.

Reported Work-Related Pesticide Poisoning Cases in Minnesota, 2000-2014

Year Number Rate per 100,000 Employed Persons Age 16 or Older
2000 72 2.7
2001 40 1.5
2002 44 1.6
2003 49 1.8
2004 37 1.3
2005 37 1.3
2006 90 3.2
2007 132 4.8
2008 93 3.4
2009 63 2.3
2010 68 2.5
2011 68 2.5
2012 68 2.5
2013 53 1.9
2014 78 2.7

This table shows the number of pesticide poisoning cases reported to the Minnesota Poison Control Center to be work-related during 2000 – 2014.  The rate per 100,000 employed persons greater than 16 years of age is also included on the table.

A change in the definition of an occupational pesticide poisoning case between 2005 and 2006 requires that one use caution when comparing years prior to 2005 to the time span including 2006 to the present.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health(NIOSH) has developed the Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risk (SENSOR)-Pesticides program in an attempt to build capacity for tracking pesticide related illness and injury. Eleven states participate in the SENSOR-Pesticides program. Five are funded by NIOSH (California, Michigan, Iowa, New York, and Washington) and six are unfunded or receive EPA funds (Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Texas) to conduct surveillance for occupationally-related pesticide illnesses and injuries.  The cases collected by these states are then reported back to NIOSH in an attempt to describe what might be occurring at the national level in regards to work-related pesticide illness and injury.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a partner with NIOSH in the provision of funds to several states that conduct SENSOR activities, estimates that between 10,000 and 20,000 pesticide poisonings occur each year in the approximately 2 million U.S. agricultural workers (http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/pesticides/). A map showing the incidence rate of acute work-related pesticide poisonings for each state from 2000-2013 is available at the NIOSH SENSOR-Pesticides Program web site.

Acute Occupational Pesticide-Related Illness Cases (11 SENSOR states)*

Year Number Participating States
2000 617 8
2001 553 9
2002 597 8
2003 610 9
2004 571 8
2005 651 9
2006 761 10
2007 974 10
2008 912 11
2009 677 10
2010 750 10
2011 853 11
2000 - 2011 8,526 --
*https://wwwn.cdc.gov/Niosh-whc/Home/Pesticides

Number of Work-Related Pesticide Poisonings Reported in Minnesota, 2000-2014

This graph shows the number of pesticide poisonings  identified as work-related when reported to the Minnesota Pesticide Poison Control  Center beginning in 2000 with 72 cases and ending in 2014 with 68.  The graph also depicts the lack of increasing  or decreasing trend in the data.  All  data points are available in table: Reported Work-Related Pesticide Poisoning  Cases in Minnesota, 2000 – 2014.

Rate of Work-Related Pesticide Poisonings Reported in Minnesota, 2000-2014

This graph shows the rate of pesticide poisonings that are  work-related per 100,000 employed persons at least 16 years of age in Minnesota  beginning in 2000 with a rate of 2.7 cases per 100,000 employed persons and  ending in 2014 with a rate of 2.73 cases per 100,000 employed persons.  All data points are available in table:  Reported Work-Related Pesticide Poisoning Cases in Minnesota, 2000 – 2014.

A trend analysis of the number of work-related pesticide poisoning cases from 2000 to 2014 did not find any statistically significant increase or decrease in the number of cases from year to year.   Continued surveillance will be necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of educational and regulatory practices in reducing future pesticide poisonings.

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Last Updated: 10/03/2022

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