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Review
. 2022 Mar 9;19(6):3198.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19063198.

Impact of Pesticides on Human Health in the Last Six Years in Brazil

Monica Lopes-Ferreira  1 , Adolfo Luis Almeida Maleski  1   2 , Leticia Balan-Lima  1 , Jefferson Thiago Gonçalves Bernardo  1 , Lucas Marques Hipolito  1 , Ana Carolina Seni-Silva  1   2 , Joao Batista-Filho  1   2 , Maria Alice Pimentel Falcao  1 , Carla Lima  1
Affiliations
Review

Impact of Pesticides on Human Health in the Last Six Years in Brazil

Monica Lopes-Ferreira et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Every year, Brazil intensifies its activity in agriculture and, as a result, it has become one of the biggest consumers of pesticides in the world. The high rate of these substances raises environmental and human health concerns. Therefore, we collected papers from PubMed, Scopus, Scielo, and Web of Science databases, from 2015 to 2021. After a blind selection using the software Rayyan QCRI by two authors, 51 studies were included. Researchers from the South and the Southeast Brazilian regions contributed to most publications, from areas that concentrate agricultural commodity complexes. Among the pesticides described in the studies, insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides were the most frequent. The articles reported multiple toxic effects, particularly in rural workers. The results obtained can be used to direct policies to reduce the use of pesticides, and to protect the health of the population.

Keywords: Brazilian scenario; human health; industrial agriculture; pesticides; rural workers; toxic effects.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Study Flow of selected articles. (B) Type of the studies conducted about pesticides in Brazil between 2015 and March 2021 (8th of March). (C) The route of exposure to pesticides were grouped into three main categories: occupational, environmental, and accidental, as described by the authors of the articles included in this review.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Brazilian institutions that published studies about human exposure to pesticides from 2015 to March 2021, classified by regions. The 51 articles included in the systematic review were grouped according to the research institutions that carried the study.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Percentage of Brazilian geographical regions where the studies were conducted, from 2015 to March 2021. The 51 articles included in the systematic review were grouped according to the Brazilian regions where the research was conducted.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Percentage of the different crops and function of pesticides described in the articles between 2015 and March 2021. The studies included in the systematic review were grouped according to (A) the type of crops that humans had contact with. The majority of the studies (47.6%) include different types of plantations such as vegetables and cereals, a classic sign of polyculture activity present in Brazil. (B) Function described by the authors or the pesticide package leaflet. Some of the chemicals mentioned have more than one function described; therefore, they were included in different categories.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Geographic distribution by percentage of the different crops described in the articles between 2015 and March 2021. The 51 studies included in the systematic review were grouped according to the type of crops and distributed according to the region’s occurrence in the percentage of total crops. The southern and southeastern regions of Brazil have a greater variety of monoculture plantations, while in other regions, polyculture stands out.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The repertoire of effects observed in the studied populations exposed to pesticides. Illustration of the types of harmful effects on humans involved in the studies caused by the exposure to different types of pesticide mentioned in the articles. All the effects were cited at least once, with most of the effects being associated and mentioned in different studies.
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