Children
Safe Workplaces and Healthy Learning Places: Environmentally Healthy Schools
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Resources | References | Test

Pesticides

"Pesticides are substances intended to destroy, control or repel pests, such as insects, weeds, fungi, rodents, and bacteria. Depending upon the dose, pesticides may cause a range of harm such as cancer, acute or chronic injury to the lungs, nervous, reproductive, and endocrine and immune system damage and may accumulate in the environment. Children are at greater risk of pesticide exposure than adults because pound for pound of body weight, children not only eat more and breathe more, but they also have a more rapid metabolism than adults and they play on the floor and lawn where pesticides are commonly applied".

There is a growing body of scientific data about the harmful effects that pesticides have on children's health, both acute and chronic. Acute affects of exposure include eye and throat irritation, skin rashes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, flu-like symptoms, upper respiratory distress, and in extreme cases, death. Chronic effects (those that appear long after exposure) include an increased risk of some types of cancer, reproductive impairment, and neurological damage (US EPA, 1999). Several studies have examined the relationship between childhood cancers (brain cancer, Ewing's sarcoma, Wilm's tumor, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) and pesticide exposures (McBride, 1998; Daniels, 1997; Buckley, 2000; Meinert, 2000; Infante-Rivard, 1999). The potential risks illustrated by these studies suggest a need for a precautionary approach when dealing with pesticide exposures and children.

Dr. Elizabeth Guillette (1998) identified two groups of Mexican children who were similar in all respects, but one, their exposure to pesticides. High levels of multiple pesticides were found in the cord blood of newborns that lived in an agricultural valley area as compared to children who lived in the foothills where pesticide use is avoided. Children in both groups were asked to draw a picture of a person. Their drawings (in figures 1 and 2) graphically illustrate the effect pesticides had on study participants' neurological development.

5-year-olds with sustained pesticide exposures

Draw a person
Figure 1
Figure 1.

 5-year-olds without sustained pesticide exposures

Draw a person
Figure 2
Figure 2.

Routes of exposure to pesticides include inhalation, ingestion, and dermal penetration. Eighty percent of ambient exposures to pesticides occur indoors; measurable levels of up to a dozen pesticides have been found in the air inside of homes (US EPA, 1988).

NURSING ACTIONS

Obtain Indoor Air Quality: An Introduction for Health Professionals.

  • Contact IAQ INFO, (800) 438-4318.

Maintain Student Health Records

  • Include information about sensitivities to IAQ problems in student health records.
  • Allergies, including reports of chemical sensitivities.
  • Asthma.
  • Completed health records should exist for each student.
  • Health records should be kept updated.

Track health-related complaints by students and staff.

  • Keep a log of health complaints that notes the symptoms, location and time of symptom onset, and exposure to pollutant sources.
  • Watch for trends in health complaints, especially in timing or location of complaints.

Recognize indicators that health problems may be IAQ-related.

  • Complaints are associated with particular times of the day or week.
  • Other occupants in the same area experience similar problems.
  • The problem abates or ceases, either immediately or gradually, when an occupant leaves the building and recurs when the occupant returns.
  • The school has recently been renovated or refurnished.
  • The occupant has recently started working with new or different materials or equipment.
  • New cleaning or pesticide products or practices have been introduced into the school.
  • Smoking is allowed in the school.
  • A new warm-blooded animal has been introduced into the classroom.

Inform students and staff about the importance of good hygiene in preventing the spread of airborne contagious diseases.

  • Provide written materials to students (local public health agencies may have information suitable for older students).
  • Provide individual instruction/counseling where necessary.

Provide information to parents, staff and students about IAQ and health.

  • Help teachers develop activities that reduce exposure to indoor air pollutants for students with IAQ sensitivities, such as those with asthma or allergies (contact the American Lung Association [ALA], the National Association of School Nurses [NASN], or the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America [AAFA].
  • Collaborate with parent-teacher groups to offer family IAQ education programs.
  • Conduct a workshop for teachers on health issues that covers IAQ.

Establish an information and counseling program regarding smoking.

  • Provide free literature on smoking and secondhand smoke.
  • Sponsor a quit-smoking program and similar counseling programs in collaboration with the ALA.

Environmental Protection Agencies' Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools available on-line at www.epa.gov/iaq/schools/toolkit.html.

previous: Why Indoor Air Quality Is Important
next: Integrated Pest Management

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