Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences Vol. 3(1) pp. 034-038, January 2012 Available online@ http://www.interesjournals.org/JMMS Copyright © 2012 International Research Journals Full Length Research Paper Herbicide Exposure to Maize Farmers in Northern Thailand: Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices Denpong Wongwichit 1,a , Wattasit Siriwong 2,4,b,* , Mark G. Robson 2,3,4,c 1 College of Public Health Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand 2 School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA 3 UMDNJ-School of Public Health, Piscataway, NJ, USA 4 Thai Fogarty ITREOH Center, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Accepted 12 January, 2012 Herbicide products have been heavily used by maize farmers in Thailand. The knowledge, attitude, and practices of herbicide use and exposure were evaluated the association in maize farmers in Nanoi district, Nan province. The total response rate was 73.3%. The results were found that 79.9% was male and 70.8% was 35-53 years old. 36.1% reported health effects after spraying. Nevertheless, 48.6% of maize farmers had high knowledge level, 69.3% had positive attitudes, and 93.9% had good practices. Statistically significant associations (p< 0.05) were found between the knowledge and the attitudes (r =0.37), the knowledge and the practices (r=0.24), and the attitude and the practices (r=0.2). However, the majority of maize farmers have high knowledge, positive attitude, good practices, but the maize farmers still had herbicides poisoning symptoms. Therefore, double check was necessarily conducted through the qualitative method. The important finding was that when the maize farmers applied herbicides, they did not use the personal protective equipments, because personal protective equipments could cause discomfort. Moreover, some maize farmers improperly used personal protective equipments. These results were directly opposite to the results that obtained by face to face interview. Therefore, the risk communication and the implementation of personal protective equipments are necessary to provide for encouraging their health effect concern and decreasing their risk of herbicide exposure. Keywords: Knowledge, attitude, practices, herbicides exposure, Thailand. INTRODUCTION Thailand has imported pesticides, e.g. herbicide, insecticide, and fungicide, into the country since the expansion of the country’s agricultural system from domestic to industrial production and mono-cropping agriculture in1950s (Siriwong et al., 2009). The amount of imported chemicals has increased dramatically from 20,790 to 116,322 tons during 1994 to 2007 (Office of Agricultural Economics, 2009). Agrochemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides, have become a major part of farming in Thailand allowing for increased crop production and income. Although pesticides are easy to buy from the market, easy to use, decrease the need for a large labor force, and allow for quick yield, many adverse health effects and environmental impacts have resulted from pesticide use. Pesticides not only destroy targeted weeds Corresponding Author E-mail; wattasit.s@chula.ac.th; Phone : +66 2 218 8231; Fax : +66 2 255 6046 and pests, but they also contaminate soil, water, and air thereby damage the surrounding ecosystem and other living organisms necessary for maintaining ecological balance, for example, insects, birds, worms, fish, etc (Siriwong et al., 2007, 2008, 2009). In humans and animals, pesticides target the endocrine system and can also cause cancer, infertility, and mutations. Pesticide residues can remain in the environment and cause long-lasting effects to humans and the environment long after discontinuation of its use (IPM Thailand, 2002). According to the Bureau of Epidemiology, Ministry of Public Health Thailand, the morbidity rate of pesticide poisoning was between 5.02 – 9.28 per 100,000 population in 2004 (Bureau of Epidemiology, 2004). This information indicated considerably large magnitude of adverse health effect due to pesticide exposure. This research was conducted among people working in maize farms in Nan, a province in the northern region of Thailand. The Nan provincial agricultural office conducted a survey in 2005 to investigate agrochemical use in the