4 h),

and the median hours sprayed in the last year by the Malaysian females was 1,560 h compared with 60 h for all users. A higher proportion of the Malaysian female plantation workers had experienced a serious or moderate health incident in the last year than the full group of users (13.7 vs. 7.9%). Nevertheless, the proportions of Malaysian female users experiencing a serious incident or an incident of any severity were close to the average for the survey and reflected their generally good working practices. Although the survey collected a considerable amount of information A-1155463 mouse about the KAP of users, information about exposure to pesticides is not very specific. Nevertheless, the logistic regression models to predict which farmers would Sepantronium solubility dmso experience incidents and the negative binomial regression models for incidence rates were informative and consistent. Farmers who experienced agricultural equipment and livestock incidents were much ICG-001 molecular weight more likely to experience agrochemical-related incidents and this was a much stronger predictor than the practices adopted by the user when measuring, mixing and spraying agrochemicals. It was an especially strong factor

in a number of countries and in Korea only 1 out of 50 users who had experienced an agrochemical-related incident had not had an incident involving agricultural equipment in the last 12 months. In some cases, the agricultural equipment incidents may have involved the spraying equipment, but the association Fossariinae with livestock incidents suggests that the association indicates a failure

to exercise caution. Younger farmers were more likely to experience agrochemical-related incidents than older users, a finding also reported by Yassin et al. (2002), but this factor was less important in models for the number of incidents, although close to significance. The confidence of the user was a key factor, especially the confidence of users about their practices when spraying. Those who felt that their practices were the safest were much less likely to experience incidents even if their practices were not the best. Users who sprayed more than the median insecticide spraying hours were at a significantly increased risk of agrochemical-related incidents but, a stronger association might have been expected given that most of the brands that users stated had caused incidents were insecticides. The regression modelling was able to confirm the value of some of the steps in the five key steps approach towards safe handling of pesticides, such as caution (demonstrated by not experiencing machinery or livestock incidents) and equipment maintenance. Personal hygiene (the user and their spraying clothes) had been expected to be more strongly associated with incidents, but cleaning contamination immediately after spillages was an important factor.