Among SUPERB participants, 23% reported using sprays inside their homes in the last year. Of these, 66% applied insecticides to only one room in their home, the remaining applied insecticides to 2 and 3 rooms . The most commonly treated room was the kitchen . Application in the kitchen creates a possibility for further exposure to insecticides through food that may become contaminated through contact with treated surfaces or surfaces accidentally contaminated with pesticide. Indoor insecticides used in the kitchen were most often applied on surfaces less than one square foot and in several specific areas ranging in size between one and five square feet , only 22% of participants applied product in cracks and crevices. Similar results were seen in Wu et al.’s analysis of SUPERB data for Northern California homes with young children. Keenan et al. found that crack and crevice treatments are most effective at limiting pesticide exposure while still effectively eliminating pests. In addition, many other experimental studies utilize crack and crevice application to evaluate pesticide exposure from the pesticide’s dispersal in the environment. Data from both SUPERB groups indicate that crack and crevice application may not be the most commonly used method; therefore, future experimental research to evaluate exposure should consider other application types in order to provide more accurate information for input into exposure models. Data on cleaning after and ventilation during and after application of indoor sprays was only collected from individuals who reported using indoor sprays in the past year . Of these individuals, 44% reported opening one or more windows during or after they sprayed insecticides in the room. Sprayed chemicals have been shown to remain at higher concentrations in the air in treated rooms and may disperse into adjacent rooms.
Ventilation after treatment may reduce the concentration of chemical in the treated room and reduce dispersal, yet,drying cannabis our findings suggest that less than half of all individuals using indoor sprays are ventilating rooms during and after applying the sprays. These results are slightly different than the findings from the Northern California SUPERB survey of families with young children, in which 58% reported opening one or more windows during or after application of indoor sprays. This difference could be due to age related factors, or could also be due to the difference in climate between Northern and Central California group. Further investigation will be needed to determine why these differences exist. Days elapsed between application and cleaning ranged from zero days to five days . When asked about how rooms were cleaned, 59% reported cleaning only the centers of hardwood floors, 10% reported vacuuming only the centers of carpeted floors, and 71% reported cleaning most of the counters after indoor spraying. Compared to the SUPERB data for Northern California families with young children, older adults allow more days to elapse between application and cleaning, 39% of families with young children cleaned on the day of application, and only 19% waited up to 5 days before cleaning. However areas cleaned did not differ between older adults and families with young children . It has been shown that pyrethroids, found in our study to be commonly applied indoors, can persist for months on household surfaces unless these surfaces are cleaned. If surfaces are not cleaned soon after application, or at all, people may increase their chances of exposure to insecticides through direct and/or indirect contact with treated surfaces and those contaminated accidentally. The disparity in days before cleaning between older adults and families with young children may be due to parents of young children being more concerned about a child frequently coming into contact with pesticide treated surfaces. Therefore parents may attempt to reduce children’s exposure to the insecticides by cleaning soon after application. In homes of older adults where young children may not be frequently present, less urgency may be felt for removing pesticides from treated surfaces through cleaning.
However, future study will be needed to definitively determine the reason for differences in post insecticide application behaviors between older adults and families with young children. Participants sprayed anywhere from one to seven areas outside of their homes, but most participants sprayed in only one or two areas outdoors. Spraying occurred most often around the perimeter of the home and on a deck, porch, or patio . Flint et al. reported similar outdoor pesticides application patterns, i.e., a majority of participants applied outdoor pesticides to hard outdoor surfaces including building perimeters, base of building, patios, sidewalks, and driveways. Residents may spend substantial amounts of time in these areas, therefore increasing their likelihood of exposure to pesticide residues.Most participants used outdoor sprays for spot application rather than applying sprays over a large area. While SUPERB asked participants about the general size of the area where insecticides were used, no data was collected in any of the three studies on the amounts of pesticides used during a typical application as participants are unlikely to be able to estimate the mass applied. Among those PEG participants who had ever applied pesticides outdoors, less than half reported ever using personal protective equipment , 32% used gloves, 8% used a mask, 2% wore coveralls, and 8% used another type of protection including protective eyewear or combinations of protective wear, such as mask and gloves. Even fewer participants who had applied indoor pesticides at any point during their lifetime reported ever using protection during application. Only 9% used gloves, 2% wore a mask, and 4% used another form of PPE when applying pesticides indoors, e.g., they reported “holding a handkerchief over the mouth” or used several types of PPE in combination. When asked about consistency of PPE use over their lifetime, 16% reported to have always used PPE during outdoor and 5% during indoor pesticide applications.
There was no significant difference in PPE use by gender. We also considered that PPE use could be related to knowledge of, and access to, PPE, therefore we compared PPE use in individuals who had ever farmed to those who had never farmed, however we found no statistically significant difference in PPE use between these two groups. An individual’s pesticide exposure may be reduced by the use of PPE, however our data strongly suggest that most people are not engaging in such exposure reducing behavior, even those who are expected to have access to and more knowledge about the proper use of PPE occupationally. This suggests that individuals perceive residential pesticide application as low risk. Furthermore, many residential pesticides do not instruct the consumer to utilize PPE, which may in part, be a reason for low frequency of use of PPE. In any event, our results indicate that older adults do not engage in any substantial exposure reducing behavior. In SUPERB, 41% reported using PPE when applying pesticides in the last year. However of the SUPERB participants who reported applying pesticides in the last year, one-third were missing a response to the question regarding PPE use, therefore this percentage may not accurately reflect SUPERB participants’ actual PPE use. PEG provided data on storage location. Pesticides applied indoors were most often stored inside the home , while outdoor use pesticides were mainly stored in the garage . For both indoor and outdoor use pesticides additional storage locations included patios or porches and some participants reported discarding the pesticide after the application. SUPERB provided data on storage of all pesticides ,ebb flow which were stored most commonly in the garage followed by inside the home . We speculate that the storage of pesticides inside the home may be an indicator of, or even lead to, more frequent use by the consumer. If pesticides are stored indoors, they are more readily available, upon notice of pests in a living area, than if they were stored in a garage or outdoors. Additionally, storage inside the home may increase exposure if the chemical is able to contaminate other objects during storage , or the container allows release of vapors into the air. All three surveys used in our studies relied on participants remembering pesticide use occurring anywhere from several months to several decades in the past; therefore our information is limited by the respondents’ ability to recall their pesticide usage over, potentially, many years. This will contribute to misclassification of exposures, in regards to product types, frequency of exposure and/or the behaviors that contribute to increasing or decreasing exposure, such as PPE, method of application used, and areas treated. For PEG and CGEP surveys in which participants reported pesticide products over their lifetime without the help of pictures or product lists the identification of product chemical and target classes may have been even more inaccurate and only reflect the most common use patterns.
For PEG and CGEP our data collection methods allowed participants to recall as many pesticides as possible, however in our data participants only reported up to five products for each type of pesticide application . It is possible that participants used more than five chemicals, and were only able to recall those used most frequently during their lifetime, therefore we may not have captured all pesticides used by participants. The CDPR did not always contain complete information on products of interest, further limiting our ability to identify products and pesticide classes accurately. In 1994, California passed the first Smoke-Free Workplace Act in the USA, and prohibition of smoking in indoor workplaces, excepting bars, was added in 1998. Since that time, smoke-free policies have become increasingly common in the USA and, internationally, protecting more than 10% of the world’s population.1 In workplaces and other environments where such policies have taken effect, their implementation has been associated with reductions in overall smoking prevalence among employees, as well as in cigarette use per day, and more generally with lower rates of hospitalisation for cardiovascular and respiratory disease and associated medical costs.2–5 Smoke-free policies have also been shown to be quite popular with affected populations, with support increasing over time and influencing social norms, which in turn may further influence quit attempts and cessation.16–8 However, protection for a little more than 10% of the world population means that billions of workers and members of the population in general do not benefit from comprehensive or even limited smoke-free policies, and coverage gaps tend to disproportionately affect certain groups.910 Even in California, which boasts a relatively low smoking prevalence rate and in which one of the earliest smoke-free policies was established, coverage gaps exist and perpetuate disparities in secondhand smoke exposure and associated disease outcomes. In this article, we investigate these disparities as they affect young adult workers, a population shown in previous research to be at increased risk of workplace SHS exposure compared to workers in general.11 In California, the Smoke-Free Workplace Act has been instrumental in reducing SHS exposure and related disease outcomes among California’s work-force; however, the law is not comprehensive and excludes certain types of businesses and their employees, leaving them at greater risk of exposure. Excluded are certain hotel/motel guest rooms, lobbies and conference facilities, small businesses with five or fewer employees, warehouses of at least 100 000 square feet that have 20 or fewer employees, truck and tractor trailer cabs, patient smoking areas of long-term healthcare facilities and private residences licensed as family day care homes.Additionally, an ‘indoor’ workplace is defined as having four walls and a ceiling; employees who work on outdoor job sites or in vehicles, private homes and other settings excluded from coverage are at greater risk of SHS exposure.Furthermore, despite clean indoor air policies in place in California and other states, studies measuring self-reported and biologically measured SHS exposure continue to find that some exposure does occur in the workplace and that this exposure is unevenly distributed. In particular, young adults, Latino, black and lower income employees, are at greater risk of workplace exposure.Workers in the skilled and building trades have also been found to have persistently higher smoking rates than other workers and have more difficulty in attempting and maintaining smoking cessation.