Citation

Lee WJ, Ko Y, Cha ES. J. Trop. Pediatr. 2014; 60(1): 4-9.

Affiliation

Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/tropej/fmt067

PMID

23943296

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to estimate the incidence of acute pesticide poisoning among children in South Korea and describe the related epidemiologic characteristics.METHODS: We evaluated the age-standardized rates of incidence of pesticide poisoning among children in South Korea from 2006 through 2009 using National Health Insurance claims data.RESULTS: A total of 1232 children aged 0-14 years were identified from the acute pesticide poisoning cases reported across South Korea during the study period. The annual average age-standardized rate of incidence from acute pesticide poisoning was 3.6 per 100 000. The majority of the cases were identified in the categories of the 1-4-year-old age-group (56.5%), outpatients (80.0%), single-day visit to a hospital (70.4%) and summer occurrence (43.3%).CONCLUSIONS: Acute pesticide poisoning is prevalent among children in South Korea; therefore, intervention efforts are needed to reduce the cases of pesticide poisoning among children.

Language: en