Citation

Osborne NJ, Cairns R, Dawson AH, Chitty KM, Buckley NA. Int. J. Hyg. Environ. Health 2017; 220(2 Pt B): 478-484.

Affiliation

Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006 Australia; New South Wales Poison Information Centre, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Westmead 2145, NSW, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijheh.2017.01.009

PMID

28238609

Abstract

Pesticides in Australia are tightly regulated but it is unknown how this may affect the distribution of misuse and self-harm across Australia, both spatially and within subgroups in the population. We performed an observational study to examine spatial differences in suicide/deliberate poisonings with pesticides in Australia. We examined Coronial inquest cases of self-harm by pesticide ingestion for the years 2001-2013 (n=209). Coronial cases were older, more likely to be male, have lower SES status and live in outer regional areas as opposed to cities when compared to the general population. Case densities (cases/100,000 population) were lower in large capital cities and higher in agricultural areas: despite this half the cases occurred in major cities.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Australia; Ingestion; Pesticide; Self-harm; Suicide