Abstract
The health risks associated with chronic home pesticide use are not fully understood, partly due to a scarcity of large-scale studies containing the requisite data on long-term exposure. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2004, which includes data on indoor and outdoor pesticide use in the past month, offers a potential resource. If past-month use reflects long-term exposure, the NHANES data could facilitate investigation into the health risks associated with chronic pesticide use. To address this question, this study evaluates the correlation between long-term and past-month pesticide use. Using data from 477 California households, joint probability models were constructed to calculate the correlation between categories of annual pesticide use frequency and the binary indicator of past-month use. The model results indicated strong correlations: 0.766 for indoor spray and 0.733 for outdoor spray in the California sample. Additional data from other U.S. regions also suggests a strong link between these variables. Overall, the findings support the utilization of past-month pesticide use as a good proxy for chronic use, validating the use of the NHANES 1999-2004 data for the exploration of the health risks associated with chronic residential pesticide exposure.