DAR ES SALAA, Sept. 18 -- More than 400 million cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning are estimated to occur among farmers and farmworkers around the world every year, highlighting the scale of a public health challenge that continues to affect agricultural communities despite growing efforts to promote safer farming practices.

A new global study published in Frontiers in Public Health estimates that between 402 million and 433 million cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning occur annually among the global farming and agricultural workforce.

The estimate is based on a worldwide farming and occupational population of approximately 934 million people, meaning that the annual burden is equivalent to about 46 percent of ...