Acute pesticide poisoning among children in South Korea: findings from National Health Insurance claims data, 2006-2009.
OBJECTIVE
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.
Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea.
Won Jin
WJ
Lee
Yousun
Y
Ko
Eun Shil
ES
Cha
D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009313:National Health Programs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010575:Pesticides / Q000506:poisoning*; D011041:Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D012042:Registries; D056910:Republic of Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D015996:Survival Rate
D010575:Pesticides
agricultural chemicals; children; epidemiology; incidence; poisoning