Intoxicações por agrotóxicos: impactos causados pela utilização indiscriminada em comunidades rurais.

Abstract

Brazil is the second country that most exports agricultural products to the world, in addition to being among the main producers of these products in the world, thus performing an important activity in the generation of the local economy. Pesticide poisoning can be classified as chronic, subacute and acute. In acute intoxication, the individual presents the symptoms in just a few hours after contact with the chemical. Thus, the study is justified by the fact that intoxications caused by pesticides in Brazil are becoming a serious public health problem. Objective: To analyze the impacts caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides in rural communities. Method: This is a systematic literature review. The search was carried out in February, March, April and May 2021, in the electronic databases Excerpta Medica dataBASE (EMBASE), Medical Analysis and Retrievel System Online (MEDLINE/ PubMed), Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS ), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and American Psychological Association (PsycINFO). Results: The search in the databases generated 4,593 references. With the program, 120 duplicates and 2,644 were removed in terms of temporality (last 10 years) resulting in 1,829 for the evaluation of the other inclusion criteria through the reading of titles and abstracts, this was carried out with the participation of two independent reviewers. After assessing eligibility, 762 articles showed potential for inclusion in the finalsample and, among these, 6 were chosen for the final sample after reading in full. It is noticed that the impacts are mainly focused on the health of farmers and the people who are close to them, regardless of whether or not they are directly involved with the handling of agrochemicals. However, it is noted that the main problem is centered on the lack of education of these workers in order to understand about the handling, protection and use and also of local health professionals, who are not able to carry out such activities Conclusion: The main impacts that the indiscriminate use of pesticides causes for the population of rural workers are centered on damage to health, mainly mental. Still, it was identified that people who are close to these workers, such as family members who work or live directly or indirectly, are also exposed to suffering such damages, showing that the lack of information is a major factor for the worsening of cases.