The Pesticide Users' Health Study (v1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Pesticide Users' Health Study: Cancer incidence, mortality, and hospital admissions.
IRAS ID
151150
Contact name
Gillian Nicholls
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Health & Safety Executive
Research summary
Exposure to pesticides has been linked to the risk of ill health, particularly cancers, in a number of studies. However, much of the evidence remains inconclusive due in part to the rarity of many health conditions and methodological difficulties. The Pesticide Users’ Health Study (PUHS) is a large cohort of pesticide users established in the late 1990’s by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). The aim of the study is to monitor the use of pesticides and the health of pesticide users in Britain, with the hope that it could one day help to inform future policy.
The PUHS includes more than 60,000 individuals across Britain, recruited through the use of a tick box when they applied for a Certificate of Competence in the safe use of pesticides with the National Proficiency Tests Council. Recruitment ceased in 2003. Since the PUHS was established, information on cancer and death registrations among the participants has been received from the Health & Social Care Information Centre (previously the NHS Information Centre). The study plans to collect this information for the foreseeable future.
Previous studies looking at long-term ill health such as neurological or eye disease, used self-reports and so could be systematically affected by recall or selection bias. This limitation could be overcome by using an objective measure of health. This study therefore plans to undertake a one-off linkage to Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), which will allow the rate of neurological, eye, respiratory and skin diseases to be investigated. All of these have been linked to pesticide exposure, but the results have been inconsistent.
The PUHS was originally granted HSE REC approval, with an amendment that included the linkage to HES approved in 2013. The study has Section 251 approval, conditional on a number of items including obtaining NHS REC approval.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NW/1042
Date of REC Opinion
22 Jul 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion