A Critical Review to Retrace the Untended Pathways of Pesticide Exposure in Humans

Introduction of pesticide use in agriculture has been one of the significant parts in green revolution which is considered as an effective tool for pest management and thereby increases crop yields and also improve food storage. Their effectiveness has also brought them into public health use for vector related disease control. Despite the multitudinous utility, the unpredictable entry of pesticides into environment leads to environmental contamination and pose risk to humans. Pesticide exposure may be direct and indirect which may likely to result in toxicity causing health issues in humans. The pathways of exposure play a crucial role in determining the intensity and duration of exposure in various categories of population. The objective of the present review article was to review the published literature for the evidence of contribution of various pathways of exposure to pesticides in humans. The main pathways of exposures would be occupational and non-occupational wherein occupational exposure may contribute to the highest risk associated due to direct exposure, several non-occupational pathways may contribute to significant amount of exposure which is less studied. In addition, the occupational pathway affects certain groups who directly handle pesticides while the non-occupational exposure might affect the general population. However, there are numerous pathways that can be enlisted in the non-occupational pathway. The necessity of the study is to obtain a better understanding of the possible multiple pathway exposures. The various non-occupational pathways include environment, para-occupational, agricultural drift, residential use, diet, various hygienic practices followed and intentional exposure. Few practices like, maintaining a pet or re-utilizing the pesticide containers have been less focused but have proven to be potential pathways of exposure. An improved understanding of the various pesticide exposure pathways in humans is critical for studying the exposure and possible risk associated with it and further indicative health effects, if any. This may confer for not only designing effective exposurereduction strategies but also help in the efficacious implementation of the strategies.