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Pesticide Illness Surveillance (pesticide illness reporting)

Reporting Pesticide Illness and Injury

Reporting Requirement

Per California law (H&S Code, Section 105200), physicians and other health care providers must report pesticide-related illness and injury to the local health officer (LHO) within 24 hours.  The LHO completes a Pesticide Illness Report (PIR) and provide copies to the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), OEHHA, and the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) within seven days after receipt of the report. 

California regulations require all health care providers to report to their local health officer any of the reportable diseases and conditions mandated under Title 17.  “Health care provider” is defined as a physician and surgeon, veterinarian, podiatrist, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, registered nurse, nurse midwife, school nurse, infection control practitioner, medical examiner, coroner, or dentist.

How to Report a Pesticide Illness

Health Care Providers

  1. Electronic reporting via the CalREDIE Provider Portal

NEW! Physicians and other health care providers can now report pesticide illness, as well as other reportable diseases and conditions, using the CalREDIE Provider Portal.  If you are interested in using the Provider Portal, please contact your local health jurisdiction to sign up for an account and for more information. 

CalREDIE is the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange.  The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) developed CalREDIE for public health experts to share information and manage public health data in a secure, electronic web-based format.  For more information, please visit the CDPH CalREDIE website or contact the CalREDIE Help Desk at CalREDIEHelp@cdph.ca.gov or (866) 866-1428.

  1. Report via phone or paper form to the LHO/local health jurisdiction (LHJ)

If CalREDIE Provider Portal is not available in your county, health care providers may call their LHJ to report the illness of injury. For a list of phone numbers to call in each county, please click here.

Health care providers can complete the Pesticide Illness Report (PIR) form and fax it to their LHO/LHJ. Please collect as much information as possible on the pesticide exposure from the patient during the examination.  For more information on how to obtain a detailed exposure history, please refer to the Appendix A of U.S. EPA handbook Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisonings, 6th Edition (Roberts and Reigart, 2013).

For work-related (occupational) pesticide illness or injury cases, physicians are also required to complete the "Doctor's First Report of Occupational Injury or Illness" (DFR) and send it to the patient’s insured employer or employer’s insurance carrier. Failure to file a timely doctor's report may result in assessment of a civil penalty. In the case of diagnosed or suspected pesticide poisoning, physicians send a copy of the report to Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Statistics and Research, P.O. Box 420603, San Francisco, CA 94142-0603, and notify the local health officer by telephone within 24 hours. The DFR may be completed by using the CalREDIE Provider Portal or the "Doctor's First Report of Occupational Injury or Illness" on-line form.

  1. California Poison Control System

Health care providers often seek advice from the Poison Control Centers for treating and managing a possible pesticide illness or injury.  The California Poison Control System (Poison Control) will inform the health care provider of the requirement to report a pesticide illness and may report on their behalf to the LHJ.  The Poison Control contact number for health care providers is:  1-800-411-8080.

Local Health Officers/Departments

LHO/LHJ must submit the pesticide illness report from the health care provider to OEHHA and DPR within seven days.  Follow this link for information on what to report and how to report.

  1. CalREDIE/PIR

Pesticide illness reports received from health care providers via phone call or faxed PIRs should be entered into CalREDIE and submitted.  Pesticide illness reports sent on behalf of providers by Poison Control must be entered into CalREDIE as well.  OEHHA and DPR will receive an alert after the case is submitted, and can access the report in CalREDIE.  This fulfills the LHO/LHJ requirement to report to OEHHA and DPR.  However, for work-related cases, the LHO/LHJ must still forward the pesticide illness report to the Department of Industrial Relations, Office of the Director – Research Unit, P.O. Box 420603, San Francisco, CA 94142-0603, Phone: (415) 703-3020 and Fax: (415) 703-3029 and notify your local health officer by telephone within 24 hours.

  • CalREDIE/PIR User Guide

A User Guide is available for new local and state CalREDIE/PIR users: CalREDIE-PIR Guide May 2013.pdf.

  • CalREDIE/PIR training

Training webinars are available for new local and state CalREDIE/PIR users. For more information, go to: http://www.oehha.ca.gov/pesticides/programs/education.html#pir.

  1. Faxed PIR to OEHHA, DPR, and DIR (work-related cases only)

For counties not using CalREDIE/PIR, the pesticide illness or injury report may be faxed to OEHHA and DPR.  Information on where to fax the report can be found on the Pesticide Illness Report (PIR) form.

Pesticide Illness Investigation and Surveillance

OEHHA Activities

OEHHA reviews and analyzes pesticide illness reports from health care providers for trends in human illness and injury related to pesticide exposure. 

OEHHA conducts toxicological evaluations and investigations related to pesticide illness episodes in areas where pesticide applications and offsite drift have resulted in illness complaints and hospitalizations.  Per the H&S Code §105220, local health officers may request assistance from OEHHA to conduct epidemiologic investigations of pesticide poisoning outbreaks and to develop recommendations to control or prevent poisonings. For reports on specific investigations, please select a link below:

DPR Activities

DPR’s Pesticide Illness Surveillance Program (PISP) is tasked with collecting and evaluating reports of pesticide illness or injury before they are assigned to county agricultural commissioners to investigate the exposure circumstances.  Scientists then review the collected information and enter it in a database.  These data are used to evaluate the effectiveness of California’s pesticide regulatory program, as well as to identify areas for improvement.  For more information on the PISP, please click here: http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/whs/pisp.htm.

OEHHA Contact Information
Pesticides@oehha.ca.gov

 
 
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