Raja Kaliappan1, Rachael Jones2, Karl J Rockne1 1Civil and Materials Engineering and 2Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Funding from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
Problem Statement and Motivation •
This study attempts to link adverse pregnancy outcomes, birth defects and childhood leukemia to pre/postnatal exposure to atrazine and nitrate through drinking water
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Atrazine is a widely applied herbicide in the cultivation of corn, sorghum and sugarcane
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Atrazine is transported by surface runoff and infiltration leading to surface water and ground water contamination and subsequent human exposure through drinking water
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Atrazine is a known endocrine disruptor. Several studies show limited evidence of atrazine exposure to adverse reproductive/birth outcomes and childhood leukemia
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Collection of county level agrochemical data in drinking water from SIDWIS and adverse reproductive/birth outcomes from birth certificates from eight Midwestern states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin
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Annual and monthly atrazine and nitrate exposure estimates
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Identification of potential confounders, correlation and multivariable regression (health-linkage) analysis of county level data
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Cluster detection, mixed effects model and geographically weighted regression using spatial statistical methods
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Drinking water data analysis shows that peak atrazine concentrations occur in the months of April to August, consistent with known application patterns
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County level annual and monthly average atrazine/nitrate exposures have been quantified for inclusion in a GIS database for spatial mapping
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These data will be linked with adverse pregnancy outcomes from public health data (birth records, birth defects, and cancer registries) for an environmental epidemiological study