Risk Behaviors During Pesticide Application: An Observational Study Among Cotton Farmers in Côte d’Ivoire
Abstract:
Risk
behaviors during pesticide application remain insufficiently documented through
direct observation in African cotton-farming settings. In the sub-prefecture of
Toumoukoro (northern Côte d’Ivoire), cotton production involves 19,562
registered producers who routinely handle organophosphates and pyrethroids.
Most available studies rely on self-reported data, which introduces a social
desirability bias that overestimates protective behaviors and underestimates
actual risk practices. This study aimed to describe and quantify risk behaviors
observed during pesticide application, to test their association with three
individual determinants — received training, educational level, and duration of
exposure — and to compare observed results with self-reported data to document
the declarative-behavioral gap. A non-participant observational study was
conducted with a purposive sub-sample of 68 cotton producers (22% of a
quantitative survey of N = 315) across 13 villages. Each session covered the
full application cycle (3 to 5 hours), coded in real time on a standardized
eight-section grid. Fisher’s exact tests, relative risks (RR), and phi
coefficients were used, triangulated with questionnaire data. Results showed
that 73.5% of producers mixed pesticides with bare hands, 100% did not wash
after application, and 0% wore boots or full-body protective clothing. Training
received by 87% of producers produced no measurable behavioral effect (p =
1.000 for each PPE item; RR = 0.92 to 1.00). The only statistically significant
determinant was exposure duration: 100% of producers exposed for ≥ 4 hours wore
no gloves (RR = 1.78, p < 0.001). Risk behaviors are near-universal,
homogeneous, and driven by structural determinants — economic barriers to PPE
access and community norms of indifference — which training alone cannot
correct. Simultaneous interventions targeting PPE economic accessibility and
community-level normative change are essential.
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