Protective Glove Use and Workplace Hygiene Practices Modify Associations between Pesticides and Parkinson's Disease

Pesticides have been associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD), and protective gloves and workplace hygiene can reduce pesticide exposure. We examined whether such practices modified the pesticide-PD association. The Farming and Movement Evaluation Study is a case-control study nested within the Agricultural Health Study, a cohort of pesticide applicators (mostly farmers) and their spouses. Use of pesticides, protective gloves, and hygiene practices were determined from structured interviews of 69 neurologist-confirmed cases and 237 matched controls. We considered interactions of glove use and hygiene with ever-use of all pesticides with sufficient exposed cases in each category of glove use (permethrin, trifluralin, rotenone, and paraquat). 61% of respondents used gloves more than half the time and 87% used 2 or more hygiene practices. Both permethrin and paraquat were associated with PD among people who did not wear protective gloves (permethrin odds ratio (OR) 4.3 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2, 15.6...