[Pesticide poisonings compensated by the INAIL in 1995-98]

Abstract

The present paper describes agricultural pesticide-related accidents compensated by the Italian national institute for insurance of occupational accidents (INAIL) from January 1995 to December 1998. During the period under study, 643 accidents claims were examined by INAIL and 549 received compensation. The Italian regions with the highest number of compensation during the period under study were Puglia (no. 102), Sicily (no. 66), Emilia-Romagna (no. 61), and Veneto (no. 55). The national annual rate of pesticide-related accidents, estimated by dividing the number of cases receiving compensation by the number of insured agricultural workers was 12 per 100,000 per year. The regions with the highest rates were Puglia and Marche (27 per 100,000 per year), Liguria (22 per 100,000 per year), and Sicily (18 per 100,000 per year). Most of the cases (70%) occurred among male workers. The agents most frequently reported to have caused the accidents were fungicides (32.2%). For a relevant number of cases (34.2%) the exposure was not specified.