Trends of chronic health effects associated to pesticide use in fruit farming regions in the state of Ceará, Brazil.

The lower valley of Jaguaribe has registered, since the XXI century, the arrival of transnational and regional companies, which led to deep transformations in this region. The increased use of the pesticides is one of the most important ones, being able to cause alterations in human procreation and leading to congenital deformations, besides premature birth and low weight newborns. This article is an ecological study related to the period from 2000 to 2010 in the population of some cities in the state of Ceará, and it was divided in two parts: the first one, a draft of historical series of morbidity and mortality databases and trend verification performed by a simple linear regression; the second one comprehends the calculation of the ratio of rates between cities that are highly exposed to pestiides and the cities selected for comparison, with history of little use of these substances.