Evaluation of the health risk for the farm workers operating in contaminated sites.

Organic and inorganic polluting substances contaminate a large number of agricultural areas in Italy. In these areas the workers' exposure to the aforesaid contaminants potentially can involve of the biological equilibrium with consequent poisonings and/or professional diseases. The aim of this paper is the evaluation of the sanitary risk for the agricultural employees that operate in a rural area of southern Italy in the Campania Region, characterized by the presence of agrarian crops in open fields and inside greenhouses. This area is also concerneded by the presence of pollutants released during the years by unauthorized dumps. The results point out that the hazard index HQ and the cancer increase risk R for the agricultural operators that work inside greenhouses or on open fields are widely below the legal limits. Furthermore the agricultural operators that work inside greenhouses, where the air replacements are produced by side and ridge openings and defective tightness of the covering, are exposed to a much greater sanitary environmental risk (HQ and R) than the labourers employed on open fields