Environmental exposure to agrochemicals and allergic diseases in preschool children in high grown tea plantations of Sri Lanka
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Exposure to agrochemicals is one of the many aetiological agents, postulated to cause allergic diseases. In this study, we have compared the prevalence of allergic diseases among preschool children growing in environments exposed to agrochemicals and artificial fertilizers with those who are not exposed to them. Our study was conducted on preschool children in two tea estates in the hill country of Sri Lanka, one using conventional agricultural practices and the other using organic practices. Data collection was done by using an interviewer administered questionnaire. Children with potential allergic conditions were further evaluated clinically by medical officers. Blood was drawn for full blood count and a blood picture. Data from 81 preschool children from an organic estate (Haputale) and 101 preschool children from a conventional estate (Thalawakelle) were analysed. Wheezing was noted in 41.2% of children from the organic estate and 59.8% from the conventional estate. The respective percentages for allergic rhinitis were as 37.7% and 82.5% while for eczema they were 17.5% and 20.28%. Among the two populations percentages of eosinophilia > 600/mm3 were as 26.1% and 34.1% respectively. Allergic conditions were more common in preschool children with environmental exposure to agrochemicals and chemical fertilizers when compared to that of organic cultivation systems. Stricter rules are needed when using agrochemicals to prevent their harmful effects, including allergic diseases, on children.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".