Pesticides expenditures by farming type and incidence of Parkinson disease in farmers: A French nationwide study

Background: Professional pesticides exposure is associated with PD risk, but it remains unclear whether specific products, which strongly depend on farming type, are specifically involved. We performed a nationwide ecological study to examine the association of pesticides expenditures for the main farming types with PD incidence in French farmers. Methods: We used the French National Health Insurance database to identify incident PD cases in farmers (2010-2015). We combined data on pesticides expenditures with the agricultural census to compute pesticides expenditures for nine farming types in 2000 in 3571 French cantons. The association between pesticides expenditures and PD age/sex standardized incidence was examined using multilevel Poisson regression, adjusted for smoking, neurologists' density, and deprivation index. Results: 10,282 incident PD cases were identified. Cantons with the highest pesticides expenditures for vineyards without designation of origin were characterized by 16% (95% CI = 6-28%) higher PD incidence (p-trend corrected for multiple testing = 0.006). This association was significant in men and older farmers. There was no association with pesticides expenditures for other farming types, including vineyards with designation of origin. Conclusions: PD incidence increased significantly with pesticides expenditures in vineyards without designation of origin characterized by high fungicide use. This result suggests that agricultural practices and pesticides used in these vineyards may play a role in PD and that farmers in these farms should benefit from preventive measures aiming at reducing exposure. Our study highlights the importance of considering farming type in studies on pesticides and PD and the usefulness of pesticides expenditures for exposure assessment.

Automated summary

The study found a significant association between pesticides expenditures in vineyards without designation of origin and Parkinson's disease incidence among French farmers, with a stronger effect in men and older farmers. No similar association was observed for other farming types.