Introduction: Occupational exposure to pesticide mixtures in agricultural work is one of the activities that generates a high impact on the health of agricultural workers and is associated with numerous related pathologies. The population that works in the fields is an important line in the economy of many countries around the world that is significantly exposed to risk factors that can lead to the development of genotoxicity linked to the use of pesticides. Objective: To determine the prevalence of genotoxic effects and factors related to occupational exposure to pesticide mixtures in workers who work in agricultural activities through a scope review from 2009 to 2019 Materials and methods: A scoping review was carried out including scientific publications from 2009 to 2019 on the prevalence of pathologies and related factors in agricultural workers exposed to a mixture of chemical substances in the Pubmed, Scopus, Cochrane databases and Google Scholar in Portuguese, Spanish and English languages and using the keywords: “pesticides”, “genotoxicity”, and “occupational exposure”. All articles reviewed and included were full text. Results: 10 articles were selected, all with genotoxic effects due to pesticides in the agricultural population, complications were evaluated where DNA alterations were established such as the micronucleus test, epigenetic alterations and the development of different types of cancer in agricultural workers who have a exposure to pesticide mixture. In the same way, these risk factors were found: occupation (field worker-farmer), type of pesticide (mixtures of chemical substances), age (over 18 years), gender (male) and exposure time. Conclusions: This scoping review presents a vision on occupational exposure to different pesticide mixtures in agricultural work, identifying genotoxicity and related factors, which will allow an adequate understanding of a problem that is not commonly investigated and that could produce a damage to the health of agricultural workers in many countries, where a relationship is established between exposure to pesticides and genotoxicity with the expression of some pathologies, including cancer.
publication date
February 15, 2021 11:03 PM
Research
keywords
Chemical occupational hazard
Genotoxicity in farmers exposed to pesticides
Occupational exposure to chemicals that affects the genome
