Sunday, February 12, 2017

Research Journal #2

What is your topic? Or what are your key words thus far?
My topic is pesticide exposure and its effects on human health
My key words so far are:
-pestidices: chemicals sprayed on crops to prevent pests from eating them
-long-term effects:effects shown weeks or weeks after the exposure 
-short-term effects:effects shown minutes or days after the exposure
-cohort:
-farmers:those spraying the pesticides


What is your research question? Have you decided to change it at all? And, if you have, how do I know that the way in which this question is formulated is appropriate to conduct a literature review with a systematic approach? 

My research question is: What are the long-term and short-term effects of pesticide exposure on human health?
I took out the topic of environmental health from my question because I felt that for the purpose of this research paper I should focus on one area rather than two. I also added long-term and short-term effects to the question because I felt that this makes my question more specific. 


And what are the definitions on which it depends?

-long-term effects:effects shown weeks or weeks after the exposure 
-short-term effects:effects shown minutes or days after the exposure
-pesticides: chemicals used on crops to avoid pests
-human health: health of humans exposed to pesticides

I plan to use articles of studies done all over the world especially on farmers (both male and female) using pesticides

What is your hierarchy of evidence? And how do I know you going about finding the most appropriate evidence/method for your research question?

cohort
research
mixed methods
policy

Cohort will be most useful in my research because my topic clearly deals with causation association so this will be on the top of my hierarchy of evidence. Research will also be helpful because it will involve research done to answer the question of whether pesticides truly do cause adverse effects on human health. Because I am including research from all over the world, it would be helpful to include different cultures and their view of pesticide exposure so for this I think mixed methods would be useful. Policy of course plays a role in my topic because it deals with the safety of people.

How do I know that the remit of the method itself is selecting the research, rather than just you on a whim? + 1 thing you found interesting + how you imagine using the source

Article #1
Beard, J., Sladden, T., Morgan, G., Berry, G., Brooks, L., & McMichael, A. (2003). Health impacts of pesticide exposure in a cohort of outdoor workers. Environmental Health Perspectives111(5), 724–730.

This article directly relates to my topic because it is a cohort investigation on the effects of pesticide exposure. Along with other cohort studies, I plan to use this study in specific to discuss the prevelance of diabetes among workers who work with herbicides. I found it interesting that there was a link to diabetes because diabetes is usually something associated with weight and/or eating habits.

Article #2
Hu, R., Huang, X., Huang, J., Li, Y., Zhang, C., Yin, Y., … Cui, F. (2015). Long- and Short-Term Health Effects of Pesticide Exposure: A Cohort Study from China. PLoS ONE10(6), e0128766. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128766

This article relates to my topic because it is another cohort study. I plan to use this study to demonstrate occupational pesticide exposure in a country other than the U.S., in this case the country is China. From this article I found interesting that there was a correlation of liver diseases and pesticides. 

Article #3
Gilden, R. C., Huffling, K. and Sattler, B. (2010), Pesticides and Health Risks. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing, 39: 103–110. doi:10.1111/j.1552-6909.2009.01092.x

This article relates to my topic in the way that it is studying the effects on health, however, this time it is looking at fetal health. I plan to use this topic to potentially talk about the health effects on the pregnant wives of pesticide farmers who become exposed to these chemicals when their partner comes home from work covered in the chemicals. This may be a long-shot so I am not sure if I will end up using this article in my final paper. One thing that I found interesting is that there was a correlation found between pest. exposure and low levels of blood in the umbilical chord which of course causes other health effects. 

Article #4
Bhanti, ., Shukla, . & Taneja, . Bull Environ Contam Toxicol (2004) 73: 787. doi:10.1007/s00128-004-0496-8

This article relates to my topic by alluding to the mixed methods research method. I plan to use this article to show the perception, knowledge, and practice of pesticide use among farmers in India. From this article I learned that many developing countries ignore the safety regulations concerning pesticide use on crops. 


Article #5
Osteen, C. D. and Fernandez-Cornejo, J. (2013), Economic and policy issues of U.S. agricultural pesticide use trends. Pest. Manag. Sci., 69: 1001–1025. doi:10.1002/ps.3529

This article directly relates to the policy aspect of my topic. I plan to use this topic in discussing the current and past policies on pesticide trends in U.S. agriculture. Something interesting that the article mentioned is that about 95% of corn, cotton, and soybean crops are sprayed with herbicides.


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