Does ‘Safer Storage’ Reduce Agricultural Pesticide Self-poisoning in Rural Asia? Professor Flemming Konradsen & Professor Michael Eddleston
Original Article Reference
This SciPod is a summary of the paper ‘Effectiveness of household lockable pesticide storage to reduce pesticide self-poisoning in rural Asia: a community-based, cluster-randomised controlled trial’, from The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31961-X
Share Episode
About this episode
Attempting suicide by ingesting pesticides is a major public health problem in rural Asia. In Sri Lanka, pesticide self-poisoning is the most common method used in suicide attempts in many rural areas. Globally, it accounts for as many as one in every five of the world’s suicides. Many people have recommended ‘safer storage and use’ as the answer to the problem. A group of Sri Lankan and international researchers took on the challenge to test, on a large scale, whether improving pesticide storage in households would actually reduce the frequency of self-poisoning with pesticides. Remarkably, they found no benefit from this approach at all. These findings have important implications for global policies aiming to reduce the incidence of suicide and self-harm.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
What does this mean?
Share: You can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt: You can change, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
Credit: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
Related episodes
Studying Meditation-related Challenges in Western Buddhism -Dr Willoughby B. Britton, Brown University
...
How Ought the Law to Deal with Implanted Medical Devices – Professor Muireann Quigley, University of Birmingham
...
Saving Tropical Forests Through International Research Collaboration -Dr Peter Beck and Dr Michael Wasserman
...
Dr Bruno Basso – Improving Agricultural Sustainability with Digital Technology
...
Increase the impact of your research
• Good science communication encourages everyday people to be scientifically literate so that they can analyse the integrity and legitimacy of information.
• Good science communication encourages people into STEM-related fields of study and employment.
• Good public science communication fosters a community around research that includes both members of the public, policymakers and scientists.
• In a recent survey, 75% of people suggested they would prefer to listen to an interesting story than read it.

Step 1 Upload your science paper
Step 2 SciPod script written
Step 3 Voice audio recorded
Step 4 SciPod published