Non-Hodgkin lymphoma among Brazilian agricultural workers: A death certificate case-control study

ABSTRACT

To estimate the non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) mortality risk among agricultural workers in Brazil's southern states, we used death certificates to identify cases of NHL between the ages of 20 and 69 years from residents of nonurban municipalities between 1996 and 2005 (n = 1,317). Controls were randomly selected from those whose underlying cause of death did not include neoplasm or hematological diseases and paired with cases by sex, age, year of death, and state of residence (n = 2,634). Odds of being an agricultural worker among cases and controls were estimated by conditional logistic regression, stratified and adjusted by sex, state, education, and race. An increased risk of death by NHL was observed among agricultural workers 20–39 years old (OR_adj = 2.06; 95% CI 95%, 1.20–3.14). Our results suggest that the young agricultural workers from southern Brazil were more likely to die of NHL compared to nonagricultural workers.

KEYWORDS:

• Epidemiology
• non-Hodgkin lymphoma
• occupational hazards
• pesticides

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Christine G. Parks for valuable English editing.