Article Sidebar
Published:
Oct 28, 2022DOI:
10.4314/ahs.v22i3.73Keywords:
Article Details
While African Health Sciences has been freely accessible online there have been questions on whether it is Open Access or not. We wish to clearly state that indeed African Health Sciences is Open Access. There are key issues regarding Open Access needing clarification for avoidance of doubt:
- 1. Henceforth, papers in African Health Sciences will be published under the CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution License) 4.0 International. See details on https://creativecomons.org/)
- 2. The copyright owners or the authors grant the 3rd party (perpetually and in advance) the right to disseminate, reproduce, or use the research papers in part or in full, format/medium as long as:
- No substantive errors are introduced in the process
- Attribution of authorship and correct citation details are given
- The referencing details are not changed.
Should the papers be reproduced in part, this must be clearly stated.
- 3. The papers will be freely and universally accessible online in an easily readable format such as XML in at least one widely recognized open access repository such as PUBMED CENTRAL.
B. ABRIDGED LICENCE AGREEMENT BETWEEN AUTHORS AND African Health Sciences
I submitted my manuscript to African Health Sciences and would like to affirm that:
1.0 I am authorized by my co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
2.0 I guarantee, on behalf of self and co-authors:
- That the paper is original, and has not been published in any other peer-reviewed journal; nor is it under consideration by other journal (s). It does not infringe existing copyright or any other person’s rights
- That we are/I am the sole author(s) of the paper and with authority to enter into this agreement. My granting rights to African Health Sciences is not in breach of any other obligation
- That the paper contains nothing unlawful, or libelous. Nor anything that would constitute a breach of contract, confidence or commitment given to secrecy, if published
- That I/we have taken care to ensure the integrity of the article.
3.0 I and all co-authors, agree that the paper, if accepted for publication, shall be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. (see https://creativecommons.org/)
Main Article Content
The association between blood, urine, respiratory, neurobehavioral parameters and occupational exposure to organophosphorus pesticides: a cross-sectional study among formulators
Abstract
Background: Organophosphate (OP) pesticides are one of the most extensively used chemical compounds all over the world.
Objective: The aim of this study is to determine whether occupational exposure of the formulators to the OP pesticides, under normal working conditions, is associated with any hematotoxic, hepatotoxic, nephrotoxic, neurotoxic, and respirotoxic responses among them.
Methods: 28 OP formulation plant workers and 17 office workers participated in this cross-sectional study as the exposed and control groups, respectively. Blood and urine samples were collected to measure hematological, biochemical, and urinalysis parameters. American thoracic society questionnaire and spirometry tests were employed to assess the function of their respiratory system. Q16 questionnaire was also used to investigate the prevalence of neurobehavioral symptoms. The data were analyzed by SPSS v.22 software using Kolmogorov–Smirnov, T-test, Mann–Whitney U, Chi-square, Fisher, Pearson, and Spearman tests.
Results: No statistically significant difference was found in hematological, biochemical, urinalysis (except in specific gravity), spirometry parameters, as well as respiratory and neurobehavioral symptoms between the exposed and the control groups. For the exposed group, however, the means of spirometry parameters were significantly lower among the smokers.
Conclusions: In this study, the expected adverse health effects due to exposure to OP pesticides were not observed among the formulators; however, the risk of developing respiratory dysfunction was found to be more considerable among smoker subjects than the non-smoker ones. Further investigations are required to determine whether formulators’ occupational exposures to OP pesticides result in certain adverse health effects.
Keywords: Pesticides; Organophosphorus Compounds; Blood; Urine; Lung.
