Overexposed? The Effects of Prenatal Pesticide Exposure on Educational Outcomes

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: This thesis aimed to investigate the potential connection between prenatal exposure to two specific types of pesticides (organophosphates and proposition 65 chemicals) and academic outcomes, including both standardized test scores and behavioral measures. The sample was drawn from students enrolled in the Fresno Unified School District in the 2015–16 school year who were born in the state of California. The sample was majority Hispanic (n = 16686) and included slightly more females (n = 14855) than males. Organophosphate exposure had a significant negative effect on standardized test scores (but notably not on behavioral outcomes) in unadjusted analyses, but these effects disappeared after adjusting for sociodemographic factors. Proposition 65 chemical exposure did not have a significant effect on any of the outcomes of interest in either the unadjusted or adjusted analyses. In conclusion, it seems unlikely that prenatal pesticide exposure (at the level it currently exists in California) has a significant effect on school-aged children beyond the effects of the demographic factors it is associated with.

Subject	Prenatal influences
Subject	Pesticides
Subject	Academic achievement
Subject	School attendance
Subject	Special education
Subject	Fresno Unified School District
Subject	organophosphate
Subject	Proposition 65
Genre	Text
Genre	Thesis

DOI	https://doi.org/10.25740/cg458wk4712
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/cg458wk4712

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred citation: Orszag, L. (2022). Overexposed? The Effects of Prenatal Pesticide Exposure on Educational Outcomes. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/cg458wk4712

Undergraduate Honors Theses, Graduate School of Education

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