Using Life History Calendars to Estimate in Utero and Early Life Pesticide Exposure of Latinx Children in Farmworker Families

Abstract

(1) Background: Early life exposure to neurotoxic chemicals can have later impacts on child health. Most research designs must assume that current exposure is similar to past. Life history calendar methods can help to provide data on early life exposure. (2) Methods: Life history calendars were completed by mothers of 8-year-old children from Latinx farmworker and non-farmworker families (n = 73 and 65, respectively). Measures were created of months exposure through living adjacent to farm fields and having household members who worked in jobs exposing them to toxic chemicals. Data were divided into time periods of in utero, early childhood (birth-35 months) and later childhood (36–96 months). Cluster analysis compared the measures for children from farmworker and non-farmworker parents. (3) Results: Although, as a group, children from farmworker families have greater lifetime months of probable exposure to pesticides than children in non-farmworker families, cluster analysis reveals groups of children who do not follow that pattern. (4) Conclusions: The life history calendar is a technique for obtaining data on early life toxic chemical exposure that may help assign children to proper exposure groups. Conducting secondary analyses using such information can help to clarify the association of exposures to health outcomes.

COVID-19 Pandemic Among Immigrant Latinx Farmworker and Non-farmworker Families: A Rural–Urban Comparison of Economic, Educational, Healthcare, and Immigration Concerns

“…Additional details of the larger study can be found elsewhere. 24 The current study used a telephone survey to reach the mother of the children in these families in May 2020. These mothers answered questions for themselves, their children, and for other family members.…”

COVID-19 Pandemic among Latinx Farmworker and Nonfarmworker Families in North Carolina: Knowledge, Risk Perceptions, and Preventive Behaviors

“…The larger study uses a comparative design, with a sample of families of Latinx farmworkers with children and a sample of similar families but without any farmworker members. Additional details of the study can be found elsewhere [27]. The current study used a telephone survey to reach the mother of the children in these families in May 2020, when no face-to-face contact between study staff and study participants was permitted by the Institutional Review Board due to COVID-19-related health concerns for research participants.…”

COVID-19 Pandemic Among Immigrant Latinx Farmworker and Non-farmworker Families: A Rural-Urban Comparison of Economic, Educational, Healthcare, and Immigration Concerns

“…Additional details of the larger study can be found elsewhere. 24 The current study used a telephone survey to reach the mother of the children in these families in May, 2020, when no face-to-face contact between study staff and study participants was permitted by the Institutional Review Board due to COVID-19-related health concerns for research participants. All procedures, including the telephone survey, were approved by the Wake Forest University Institutional Review Board.…”