Prevalence of asthma and allergy symptoms and pulmonary function testing in sugar cane and tobacco field workers in Honduras

We previously demonstrated a very high prevalence of wheezing (89%) and lower pulmonary function tests (PFT) in rural Honduran children of the Rio Grande O Choluteca valley where sugar cane is burned 8 months of the year compared to children of Jamastran valley (17% wheezing) where no crops are burned. We applied a similar asthma/allergy questionnaire and performed PFT on sugar cane field workers (SC) of the Rio Grande O Choluteca valley and tobacco field workers (TOB) of the Jamastran valley. Tables 1 & 2 summarize questionnaire findings and PFT values of the two groups. We found the SC workers to be significantly younger with thus fewer years working in the fields compared to the TOB workers. Both groups were found to have similarly high prevalence9s of ever wheezed, wheezed in last 12 months, night cough, smoking frequency, chronic rhinitis and conjunctivitis. SC workers have significantly lower FVC and FEV-1. We conclude that both SC and TOB field workers in Honduras have a high prevalence of asthma and allergy symptoms and SC workers, although younger with fewer years of exposure, have lower pulmonary function. Individual air quality sampling of the two groups is needed to delineate the contribution of environmental work exposure to these findings.