Five Years Follow-up of Some Cardio-Respiratory Risk Factors among Agricultural Workers

Background: Agricultural workers represent an important sector of the under-served working population in Egypt. The present follow-up study was designed to investigate some cardio-respiratory risk factors among agricultural workers in relation to common occupational exposures including pesticides, as well as their life-style characteristics. Methods: Forty male workers were included in a 5 years follow-up study. They comprized 20 agricultural workers and 20 administrative control workers from a newly developing community to the south of Alexandria. After ethical considerations, a baseline then a 5 year follow-up studies including environmental assessment of respirable particulates and pesticides, as well as health assessments were performed. The health assessment investigated life-style, blood pressure, anthropometry, pulmonary functions, conventional coronary risk factors and resting electrocardiogram by the same standard methods in both studies. Additionally, a baseline non-specific acetylcholine bronchial provocation challenge was done for all participants. Results: Environmental exposures for the measured parameters showed decreasing trends. In baseline examination, there were no significant differences in cardio-respiratory variables between agricultural and control groups. Bronchial hyper-reactivity was significantly prevalent among agricultural workers (p=0.013) in the baseline examination. The systolic blood pressure showed a significant trend of increase in the follow-up among the agricultural workers with a positive correlation to the dietary salt (p<0.05). The PEF and MEF75% showed significant trends of decrease in the follow-up among agricultural workers (p<0.05) especially for cases with baseline bronchial hyper-reactivity. In conclusion, it seems that lifestyle and personal susceptibility interact with environmental factors to influence cardio-respiratory health outcome for agricultural workers.