Effectiveness of interventions to promote pesticide safety and reduce pesticide exposure in agricultural health studies: A systematic review

Abstract

About the Authors: Maryam Afshari Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing Affiliation: Department of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran Akram Karimi-Shahanjarini Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing * E-mail: [email protected] Affiliations Department of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2453-1389 Sahar Khoshravesh Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing Affiliation: Department of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran Fereshteh Besharati Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing Affiliation: Department of Nursing, Zeynab (P.B.U.H) School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran Introduction Agriculture is a pillar of development and achieving the goal of sustainable agriculture is one of the most important goals and responsibilities of each country. A data extraction template was developed by the research team based on the goals of the study that included the title and author(s), place of study, objective of the study, sample size, characteristics of participants, intervention package (including strategies used, target outcome(s), use of behavioral theory, follow-up duration, measurement tools used to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention), and change in target outcome(s). [...]we included 32 articles from 31 studies in this review that satisfied our inclusion criteria (Fig 1). Results of the Quandt et al study [17] were reported in the article by Grzywacz et al [18]. [...]Quandt et al [17] was considered as the main study.

About the Authors:

Maryam Afshari

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation: Department of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

Akram Karimi-Shahanjarini

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2453-1389

Sahar Khoshravesh

Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation: Department of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

Fereshteh Besharati

Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation: Department of Nursing, Zeynab (P.B.U.H) School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran

Introduction

Agriculture is a pillar of development and achieving the goal of sustainable agriculture is one of the most important goals and responsibilities of each country. As reported by the World Bank (2010), about 20% of workers were employed in agriculture worldwide [1]. Regardless of working conditions, due to exposure to hazardous factors, agriculture has been ranked as one of the most hazardous industries [2].

The use of pesticides may cause serious health problems in farmers and farmworkers [3]. Pesticide use is dramatically increasing worldwide. Optimum and safe use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers are essential to save agricultural products from poisonous contamination and farmers’ health [4]. However, along with the advantages of pesticides, there are also threats such as environmental pollution and acute pesticide poisonings due to improper and unsafe handling [5].

Several factors associated with farmers’ pesticide exposure have been reported in previous investigations. Some of these factors include using banned or restricted pesticides, the lack use of appropriate equipment along with taking protective activities that are needed during pesticide handling [6], label non-compliance, improper spraying or protective equipment, unsafe pesticide disposal [7], insufficient knowledge of the law, limitations of environmental standards [8], and lack of training [9].

Existing evidence on farmers and farmworkers’ health highlights a research gap in this regard. Particularly, the effectiveness of varied interventions developed to reduce agricultural injuries is not well documented [10]. The well-conducted evaluations would increase our knowledge of the prevention of farmers’ pesticide exposure by documenting what works. These efforts could be useful in identifying the most cost-effective programs in this area.

We identified two recent reviews which focused on the effectiveness of interventions to reduce pesticide exposure among farmers. Both of these reviews focused only on the effectiveness of educational interventions [11, 12]. So, there is limited evidence to support the effectiveness of several types of interventions that are used to improve knowledge, attitude, beliefs, practice/ behavior, and exposure monitoring methods related to reducing pesticide exposure among farmers and farmworkers. Also, neither review assessed the methodological quality of the included studies. This systematic review was conducted to identify and describe the effectiveness of various types of interventions that have been designed to promote pesticide safety and reduce exposure to pesticides amongst the farmers and farmworkers.

Methods

We followed PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) as a guideline to document and report our search and screening process. Applying this guideline increases the transparency and quality of reporting [13].

Search strategies

We used search terms that covered the concepts of pesticide exposure, farmers and farmworkers, and study design to identify studies in the electronic databases. Search strategies were obtained from the previous systematic reviews [10–12, 14]. We then modified it to fit the features of the databases. All databases were searched up to August 2019.

We searched the following electronic literature databases: PubMed, Agricola, Embase, ISI Web of Science, Science Direct, Scopus, NIOSHTIC-2, Agris. We also tracked the citation of both forward and backward reference lists of included articles and relevant reviews were checked for all included studies.

The search strategy for PubMed is described in S1 Appendix.

Inclusion criteria

We included studies published in English peer-reviewed journals and had the following criteria:

Study population.

Our focus was on farmers and farmworkers, although we did not exclude interventions that had some components for other groups including farmers and farmworkers’ families.

Types of studies.

We included studies that were randomized controlled interventions (RCT), pretest/ post-test interventions (PPI) or controlled pretest/post-test interventions (cPPI). Descriptive, qualitative, review, systematic review, and meta-analysis studies to reduce exposure to pesticides in agriculture were excluded.

Types of interventions.

We included interventions at the national, regional, organizational, community, or individual level deliberately designed to reduce exposure to pesticides or poisoning.

Types of outcomes.

We selected studies in which the primary outcome measure was a subjective (e.g., knowledge/ awareness, attitude, risk perception, and reporting personal protective equipment use) or objective (i.e., measures such as cholinesterase determined by biological monitoring or exposure monitoring) measure of pesticide exposure. We did not consider studies in which the evaluation of outcomes was conducted using qualitative data. In addition, we considered the studies the outcomes of which emphasized only pesticide exposure in three aspects including knowledge, attitude and beliefs, practice or behavior, and exposure monitoring methods.

Study selection

Titles and abstracts of studies retrieved by electronic searching were independently screened for eligibility by the three co-authors (M.A, F.B, and S.K). Any discrepancies between the reviewers were resolved through discussion with a fourth review (A. K-Sh). When it was not possible to assess the eligibility of studies based on the title and abstract, full-text versions were obtained.

Data extraction

Data were extracted independently by two authors (S.K and M.A). A data extraction template was developed by the research team based on the goals of the study that included the title and author(s), place of study, objective of the study, sample size, characteristics of participants, intervention package (including strategies used, target outcome(s), use of behavioral theory, follow-up duration, measurement tools used to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention), and change in target outcome(s). Any disagreements were resolved by a fourth reviewer (A. K-Sh). Details of the included studies are reported in Tables 1 to 3. Due to the differences in interventions and target outcomes, no meta-analysis was attempted on the included studies.

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Table 1. Effectiveness of randomised controlled trials studies to reduce pesticide exposures.

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Table 2. Effectiveness of controlled pretest/post-test designs to reduce pesticide exposures.

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Table 3. Effectiveness of pretest/ post-test designs to reduce pesticide exposures.

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Quality assessment

The quality of included studies was assessed by two independent reviewers (M.A and S.K) using the Effective Public Health Practice Project quality assessment tool (EPHPP). This tool is applicable across multiple study designs. EPHPP rates studies as strong, moderate, and weak in terms of their data collection methods, confounders, study design, selection bias, blinding, dropouts, and intervention integrity [15]. Any discrepancy between two reviewers on the quality rating process was resolved by discussion or by a third reviewer (A. K-Sh).

Inter-rater reliability was approved by calculating the percentage of conformity and a Cohen’s Kappa coefficient [16]. We did not exclude studies based on the results of quality assessment. Inter-rater agreement varied across EPHPP component ratings. Overall, there was a good agreement between the two reviewers (Kappa coefficient ranged from 0.66 to 1.00).

Results

Results of the search and included studies

A total of 47912 references were identified and reviewed. From these references: 1222 were selected for abstract review and after in-depth abstract review, and 54 were selected for detailed review. Then reference lists of these articles were checked and 14 new references were identified. Finally, we included 32 articles from 31 studies in this review that satisfied our inclusion criteria (Fig 1). A summary of the included articles is provided in Tables 1, 2 and 3. Results of the Quandt et al study [17] were reported in the article by Grzywacz et al [18]. Therefore, Quandt et al [17] was considered as the main study. The results of Farahat et al study (2008) [19] were reported in Farahat et al study [20] and Farahat et al study was considered as the main study [20]. Thus, two articles came out. Thompson et al. [21] and Strong et al [22] reported the results of a study in the form of two articles (Fig 1).

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Fig 1. Flow diagram for the identification, screening, eligibility and inclusion of studies.

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Design of the studies

Of the 31 studies, seven studies were controlled pretest/post-test (cPPI) interventions [5, 23–28], fifteen studies were pretest/post-test interventions (PPI) [17, 29–42], and nine studies were randomized controlled trials (RCT) [20, 22, 43–49].

Study time and settings

Fifteen articles were published in 2010 or later [5, 17, 23, 24, 26, 28, 34, 37, 38, 40, 42, 45, 47–49]. Fourteen studies were carried out in the USA [17, 22, 27, 29, 31, 34–36, 40, 43–47]. The other eighteen studies were conducted outside the USA: four in Thailand [23, 24, 32, 49], two in Sri Lanka [33, 41], two in Ecuador [30, 38], two in Egypt [20, 42], two in Nepal [28, 48] and one in India [39], Iran [37], Australia [26], Bolivia [5], and Nicaragua [25].

Participants and follow-up duration

Most studies had a small sample size. The number of participants in twenty-one studies was less than 200 [5, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32–34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 43–49]. Sixteen studies focused on farmers/ farmers and their families [5, 17, 20, 24, 25, 28, 30, 32, 33, 37–39, 41, 42, 48, 49]. Sixteen studies were conducted among farmworkers/ farmworkers and their families [21–23, 26, 27, 29, 31, 34–36, 40, 43–47]. The follow-up duration for studies was often quite short, one month or less in eight studies [20, 27, 35–37, 39, 48, 49], less than 6 months in eight studies [23, 26, 29, 31, 42, 45–47], and more than 6 months in ten studies [5, 17, 22, 24, 25, 30, 32, 33, 38, 41]. Follow-up in five studies was unknown [28, 34, 40, 43, 44].

Theoretical framework usage

Of included studies, only eight (25%) used the behavioral theories. The health belief model (HBM) was the most frequent theoretical framework employed [17, 24, 26, 42, 47, 49]. Other theories included social cognitive theory [23], observational learning theory [31], and the theory of reasoned action [43]. One study applied both the health belief model and social cognitive theory [47]. Of these studies, only in two studies, components of theories were measured [24, 27] and theoretical frameworks in the remaining studies were used only to guide the intervention development [17, 23, 31, 42, 43, 47, 49].

Types of outcome measures

Results of the included articles were mainly based on self-reported data and only in eight articles objective measures (such as levels of urinary malathion metabolites, dislodgeable foliar residue (DFR), and plasma cholinesterase) were used to evaluate the effects of interventions [21, 25, 30, 44, 45, 47–49]. Among these articles, five used both objective and self-reported [25, 30, 45, 48, 49]. Among the articles relying on self-reported data, seven articles targeted at knowledge and attitude/beliefs of participants [23, 26, 29, 31, 34, 37, 42], twelve articles tested knowledge, attitude/ beliefs as well as behavior/ performance of the participants [5, 17, 20, 24, 27, 28, 32, 35, 36, 38, 39, 43], and five articles assessed only the behavior/performance of participants [22, 33, 40, 41, 46].

Types of intervention and their effects

Due to the heterogeneity designs and outcome variables of included studies, qualitative and semi-quantitative analyses were used to analyze the results.

In order to categorize the interventions, we used the categories provided by Murphy (1980) and Haddon (1996) which divided interventions into five groups, including education/ behavior change, incentive, engineering/ technology, legislation/ enforcement, or multifaceted programs [10].

Educational/behavioral intervention.

Educational/ behavioral approach (e.g. training the farmers and their families at workplace or through home visit) was used in twenty-one studies [5, 17, 20, 23–29, 31, 32, 34–37, 39, 43, 45, 47, 49]. Five of these studies were RCTs [20, 43, 45, 47, 49], whereas seven were controlled in pretest/post-test interventions (cPPI) [5, 23–28], and nine employed pretest/post-test designs without control group (PPI) [17, 29, 31, 32, 34–37, 39]. Ten of these studies focused on farmers/farmers and their families [5, 17, 20, 24, 25, 28, 32, 37, 39, 49], and eleven studies were conducted among farmworkers/farmworkers and their families [23, 26, 27, 29, 31, 34–36, 43, 45, 47], (Tables 1, 2, and 3). Of the 21 studies that applied educational/ behavioural approach, 14 studies (67%) were assessed as having low quality [5, 20, 24, 25, 27–32, 34, 36, 43, 49] (Table 4).

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Table 4. Quality assessment using EPHPP quality rating.

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Eighteen studies (including 8 studies among farmers/farmers and their families and 10 studies among farmworkers/ farmworkers and their families) categorized in the educational/ behavioral approach measured the participants’ knowledge as an outcome [5, 17, 20, 23, 24, 26–29, 31, 32, 34–37, 39, 43, 45]. The result of these studies showed that all but one study conducted among farm workers and their families were successful [43]; however, the quality of about 59% of these interventions was graded low [5, 20, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 36].

All seven studies (including four studies among farmers/farmers and their families and 3 studies among farmworkers/ farmworkers and their families) which measured the participants’ attitude/ beliefs [23, 24, 26–28, 32, 39] were effective. However, four studies were assessed to have low quality [24, 27, 28, 32].

Participants’ behaviour /practices were considered as outcome in fourteen studies (including 9 studies among farmers/farmers and their families and 5 studies among farmworkers/ farmworkers and their families), participants’ behaviour /practices were considered as outcome variable [5, 17, 20, 24, 25, 27–28, 32, 35, 36, 39, 43, 45, 49]. Of these studies three were not successful [20, 43, 45], and two improved in some assessed behaviour and practices [27, 36]. The quality of about 45% of effective interventions was graded low [5, 24, 25, 28, 32, 49]. Interestingly, while about 89% of studies targeted farmers/ farmers and their families were successful in making a significant change in behavior/ practice [5, 17, 24, 25, 28, 32, 39, 49], only 20% of studies targeted farmworkers/ farmworkers and their families have been reported as completely effective.

Of educational/ behavioral interventions, only four studies (including two studies among farmers and two studies among farmworkers/ farmworkers and their families) evaluated the effectiveness using objective measures (e.g., biomarkers of pesticide exposure and neurobehavioral test) [25, 45, 47, 49]. While of four studies, two conducted among farmers were found effective [25, 49], none of the two studies conducted among workers were completely effective [45, 47].

Incentive intervention.

Incentive intervention consisted of providing money/PPE or positive feedback. We found only one study that specifically evaluated an incentive intervention [48]. The results revealed that it was not effective in making a change in acute organophosphate poisoning symptoms and plasma cholinesterase.

Engineering and technological interventions.

Engineering/technology interventions consisted of improving the pesticide sprayer machines and equipment and replacing hazardous structures with safer ones. We did not find any studies that specifically evaluated only an engineering and technological intervention.

Legislation/enforcement intervention.

We did not find any studies that specifically evaluated only a legislation/enforcement intervention.

Multifaceted programs.

Multifaceted programs were applied in ten studies (including 5 studies among farmers/farmers and their families and 5 studies among farmworkers/ farmworkers and their families) [21, 22, 30, 33, 38, 40–42, 44, 46] which included a combination of interventions such as education, home visits, providing personal protective equipment (e.g., coveralls and gloves), laundry service, warm water and soaps, containers for storing work shoes and clothes. Of these studies, four were RCT [21, 22, 44, 46], and six employed quasi-experimental designs without control group (PPI) [30, 33, 38, 40–42]. Of ten multifaceted programs, nine studies were assessed to have a low-quality [21, 22, 30, 33, 38, 40–42, 44] (Table 4).

Of nine studies that used a multifaceted approach, three low-quality studies assessed the participants’ knowledge as an outcome, which was effective [30, 38, 42]. In eight studies, participants’ behavior/ practices were considered as the outcome [22, 30, 33, 38, 40–42, 46]. Of these studies four low-quality studies which focused on farmers/ farmers and their families were successful in making change in participants ‘behaviors [30, 33, 38, 41], whereas three studies which focused on farmworkers/ farmworkers and their families improved in some assessed behavior and practices [22, 40, 46]. In three studies, objective measures were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the multifaceted programs [21, 30, 44]: two among farmworkers and one among farmers. Of these studies two were effective in assessed metabolites [30, 44].

Discussion

To the best of our knowledge, there are no systematic reviews that examine comprehensively the effectiveness of interventions to promote pesticide safety and reduce pesticide exposure among farmers or farmworkers. Indeed, we conducted this review to address the gaps of previous efforts. The majority of the studies included were quasi-experimental (21/31). This might be due to the affordability and feasibility of this type of design. Moreover, 75% (24/32) of articles were categorized as low quality.

Although we expected to find evidence on the effectiveness of five interventional approaches, we discovered no studies investigating specifically the legislation/ enforcement or engineering/ technology interventions. We also found only one study that specifically addresses the effectiveness of the incentive intervention. However, this type of intervention was used in combination with other types of interventions (i.e., multifaceted intervention). The majority of studies were based specifically on educational/ behavioral interventions. In addition to studies that specifically evaluated educational interventions, this approach has been used in all the multifaceted interventions as a key component. Although the evaluated educational interventions were effective in general, the following two considerations should be taken into account in the interpretation of results: First, the main success of these studies was to change participants’ knowledge and beliefs and in cases that practices and objective measures were considered as the outcomes, the interventions were less likely to be successful. Second, the positive results of these interventions should be interpreted in light of the design and quality of studies.

The majority (68.8%) of the studies used this approach were quasi-experimental designs and about 71% were categorized as low-quality studies and only one study was ranked as having a strong quality. This case becomes clear considering that in terms of all outcomes; results of quasi-experimental studies were more successful than the findings of RCTs. This could be related to the inherent weakness of quasi-experimental design for evaluating the effectiveness of alternative intervention rigorously. Similar concerns have been raised about other reviews evaluating the effectiveness of educational interventions among farmers and farmworkers [12, 50].

Another finding of our review is that compared to farmworkers and their families, the interventions which targeted farmers and their families achieved more success. There are some explanations for this result. Farmworkers may have lower-incomes, lower education levels, cultural /language barriers, and in some cases temporary work permits. Also, they may have less control over the work conditions [51].

This review highlights the limited research on this field in LMICs. While only 3.15% of total employment in HICs (vs. 36.15 in low-middle income countries) relates to the agriculture sector [1] more than 50% of the identified studies were based on data from HICs. Also, regarding the type of design of the included studies, our review showed that seven out of nine studies which used RCT were conducted in USA which highlights the challenges associated with performing RCT in LMICs.

The multi-faceted intervention would be expected to reveal more positive results than educational/ behavioral interventions. However, our review showed that this type of intervention was partially successful in changing promote pesticide safety and reduce pesticide exposure It should be noted that multifaceted interventions in the included studies consisted of a combination of educational/ behavioral and incentive interventions. In other words, no multi-faceted intervention studies used engineering/ technology or legislation/ enforcement approach as part of their intervention strategy. This might be due to the implementation challenges and limited infrastructure. It seems that to be effective, educational/ behavioral interventions need to be embedded in contextual factors and combined with engineering/ technology or legislation/enforcement approaches. Although there are many laws and regulations to protect farmers and farmworkers from pesticide risks-especially in HICs- investigation on their adaptation, implementation, and evaluation remain underexplored in the literature.

Regardless of study design and type of intervention used, our review showed that the interventions were most likely to be successful in making a change in participants’ knowledge/ beliefs. However, it should be noted that only in seven studies (out of 21) that evaluated knowledge/ beliefs, follow up duration was longer than six months. This means that it is not clear that the obtained changes would be sustained over time.

Only eight articles (out of 32) determined objective measures to evaluate the effects of interventions. This may be due to several reasons: lack of skill in evaluation plan, insufficient funding, and supervision, and lack of available resources and equipment [52].

Regarding outcomes other than knowledge/ beliefs, the success of interventions was partial. We believe that there are at least four explanations for this finding. First, while the increasing evidence suggests that the legislation/enforcement approach had an influence on the effectiveness and sustainability of health-related interventions in other contexts [53, 54], the findings of this review showed that the majority of studies used only educational/ behavioral approaches.

Health promotion activities can play a significant role in increasing visibility and highlighting the importance of legislation/ enforcement interventions. Given the fact that the effects of the legislation/enforcement or engineering/ technology interventions do not appear immediately, design studies such as time series may be used to evaluate these types of interventions. Second, this may reflect lack of attention to behavior change technique (BCT) according to targeted outcomes. Indeed, it seems that the majority of included studies involved providing the overall information regarding the risks and behavior and did not apply behavioral methods such as goal setting, planning/ implementation, and social encouragement/ support. There is evidence suggesting that providing individually tailored information (vs. overall information [55] and using particular behavior change techniques are associated with more effectiveness [56]. We recommend a review for future focusing on comparisons of the different behavior change methods. Third, it is evident that considering social and behavioral science theories in developing public and health promotion programs is associated with more effectiveness [10]. These frameworks help to understand health behaviors and the contexts (such as cultural, economic, and social circumstances) in which they occur. Our findings revealed that a majority of studies (about 71%) did not explicitly apply social or behavioral theories. Fourth, it should be taken into account that changing the behavior of farmers and farmworkers is difficult and many protective recommendations are never adopted by farmers. Based on the ecological model, for attempts to be effective in farmers’ and farmworkers’ health and modify farmers/farmworkers’ behavior, it is necessary to develop multilevel interventions (i.e., intervention at individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy level) targeting different barriers. The results of this study and the existent evidence show that most programs in this area tend to focus on the individual farmers/ farmworkers and limited attention has been paid to involving the higher layer of the ecological model. In this study, we found that the focus of about 54% of the studies was on the farmers/farmerworkers, and the rest of the interventions had some components for their families. In this way, the higher layers of ecological model have been ignored.

This review has limitations. We included multiple types of outcomes and study designs which makes it impossible to perform a meta-analysis. In addition, in order to assess the higher quality evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention, we didn’t search the grey literature; therefore, a publication bias may exist in this review.

Conclusion

The studies included in this review addressed the effectiveness of interventions for farmers/ farmworkers to promote pesticide safety and reduce pesticide exposure. The majority of studies relied on only education/ behavior change. We also found some studies that reported the effects of multifaceted programs combining more than one approach such as education, home visits, and providing personal protective equipment. Although the interventions were effective in general, the results should be interpreted in the light of design limitations and self-reported outcomes. Further research is crucial to understand the role of other than educational/ behavioral interventions and the effectiveness of well-designed on more objective outcomes.

Supporting information

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S1 Appendix. Search strategy for PubMed.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245766.s001

(DOCX)

S1 File. PRISMA 2009 checklist.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245766.s002

(DOC)

Acknowledgments

This project has been approved by the Research and Technology Deputy of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences.

Citation: Afshari M, Karimi-Shahanjarini A, Khoshravesh S, Besharati F (2021) Effectiveness of interventions to promote pesticide safety and reduce pesticide exposure in agricultural health studies: A systematic review. PLoS ONE 16(1): e0245766. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245766

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