Pesticide-related poison center exposures in children and adolescents aged ≤19 years in Texas, 2000–2013

Abstract

Context: Although national poison center data show that pesticides were the 8th most commonly reported substance category (3.27%) for children aged ≤5 years in 2014, there is limited information on childhood and adolescent pesticide exposures.

Objective: This study assessed pesticide-related poison center exposures in children and adolescents aged ≤19 years from 2000–2013 in Texas to characterize the potential burden of pesticides.

Materials and methods: Pesticide-related poison center exposures among children and adolescents aged ≤19 years reported to Texas poison centers were identified. The distribution of exposures was estimated by gender, age category, medical outcome, management site, exposure route, and pesticide category.

Results: From 2000 to 2013, there were 61,147 pesticide-related poison center exposures in children and adolescents aged ≤19 years. The prevalence was highest among males at 864.24 per 100,000 population. The prevalence of unintentional exposures was highest among children aged ≤5 years at 2310.69 per 100,000 population, whereas the prevalence of intentional exposures was highest among adolescents aged 13–19 years at 13.82 per 100,000 population. A majority of medical outcomes reported were classified as having no effect (30.24%) and not followed, but minimal clinical effects possible (42.74%). Of all the exposures, 81.24% were managed on site. However, 57% of intentional exposures were referred to or treated at a health-care facility. The most common routes of exposure were ingestion (80.83%) and dermal (17.21%). The most common pesticide categories included rodenticides (30.02%), pyrethrins/pyrethroids (20.69%), and other and unspecified insecticides (18.14%).

Discussion: The study found differences in the frequency of exposures by intent for sex and age categories, and identified the most common medical outcomes, management site, exposure route, and pesticide category.

Conclusion: Through characterizing pesticide-related poison center exposures, future interventions can be designed to address groups with higher prevalence of exposure.

Keywords:

• Adolescents
• children
• pesticides
• poison center

Disclosure statement

The authors report no declarations of interest.