PhD student: Matthieu Mancini
Title: Residential pesticide exposures in agricultural areas and childhood acute leukemia risk
Supervisor: Stéphanie Goujon
Doctoral school: DS393 Pierre Louis of Public Health in Paris: Epidemiology and Biomedical Information Sciences
Promotion: 2022
Funding: INCa
Thesis abstract
In France, around 1,800 cancers are diagnosed each year in children under the age of 15, a third of which are acute leukemias (AL). Exposure to pesticides, in conjunction with domestic use and maternal occupational exposure during pregnancy, is strongly suspected of increasing the risk of AL in children. The role of agricultural pesticide exposure in areas bordering crops is also discussed.
The main aim of this thesis project is to study the link between residential exposure to pesticides in the vicinity of agricultural plots and the risk of LA in children in mainland France. We will study the association between the risk of LA and crop density (overall and by crop type) within a 1000 m radius of children’s residential addresses, on the one hand, and exposures to pesticide substances applied to plots under cultivation, on the other.
This work, developed as part of the GEOCAP research program, is based on a national case-control study with geolocation of home addresses (around 6,000 LA, 20,000 controls). Exposure indicators (proximity to crops, pesticide exposure) are defined on the basis of cartographic data, crop-exposure matrices and national pesticide sales data.
