• Megan Shepherd-Banigan, Angela Ulrich, and Beti Thompson.
• Cancer Prevention Program, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA; Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. Electronic address: msb23@uw.edu.
• Environ. Res. 2014 Jul 1; 132: 176-81.

BackgroundChildren of farmworkers have significantly higher exposure to pesticides than do other children living in the same agricultural communities, but there is limited information about how and where older farmworker children (>6) spend their time and how their activities might influence the risk of pesticide exposure.ObjectivesUsing data from the Community Based Participatory Research Study for Healthy Kids, we compared activity patterns recorded over 7 days during two agricultural seasons (pre thinning and thinning) between farmworker and non-farmworker children aged 6-12 years old living in Eastern Washington State.MethodsParents completed a 7-day activity diary recording the activity patterns of their children. Mean differences in individual-level activity patterns across season were analyzed using paired t-tests and the Signed Rank Test. Differences in mean activity patterns comparing farmworker and non-farmworker children were analyzed using the Wilcoxon Sum Rank Test to assess differences in distributions across independent samples.ResultsWe observed substantial differences in child activity patterns between the two seasons. The children in this sample spent more time outdoors (p<0.001) and were more likely to engage in behaviors, such as playing in the fields (p=0.01) and accompanying their parents to work in the fields (p=0.001) during the high-spray thinning season. There were some differences in activities and behaviors between farmworker and non-farmworker children during the thinning season.ConclusionThis study demonstrates that multiple factors, including agricultural season and parental occupation, may be associated with differences in activity patterns that could influence risk of pesticide exposure among children living in agricultural communities. As such, these factors may influence variation in exposure risks and should be considered when analyzing pesticide exposure measurements in these groups.Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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