Search

Injury and fatality events that are caused by tree work and tractor-related activities contribute to the already elevated rates of work-related injuries in the agriculture and logging sectors. This brief report highlights the circumstances surrounding these events, as well as a number of surveillance sources that identify the extent to which they contribute to the injury burden in these hazardous industries. These data sources include fatality investigations, agricultural injury news reports, consumer product injury data captured from emergency rooms and near-miss reporting data captured from individuals participating in the National Rollover Protective Structure Rebate Program (NRRP). Several recommendations for further research and interventional efforts are outlined, with particular consideration of the manner in which rollbars have been involved in falling object incidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skid steers are versatile self-propelled machines that are regularly used in a variety of recreational applications and occupational industries. They can be hazardous for both operators and bystanders. The purpose of this paper is to describe patterns of skid steer injuries in the US from 2015 to 2020. Data were obtained from Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) accident reports and the severe injury database. Agriculture-related incidents were obtained from AgInjuryNews. The study identified 312 skid steer-related injuries (2015–2020) in OSHA, with an additional 68 agricultural injuries identified using AIN. Construction, administrative and waste management, and agriculture industries were the top three industries with the highest number of injuries. Bystander workers experienced a higher number of injuries than operators. Contact with the machine was the most prevalent and more fatal than the other injury events. Agricultural skid steer injuries involved a broad age range of victims, from very young children to adults. These findings emphasize the need for improved safety engineering and clear safety guidelines for skid steer operators and those who are around skid steers. With the increased prevalence of skid steers across industries, it is imperative to have cohesive and comprehensive safety regulations, guidelines, and policy enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveillance of injuries in production agriculture is necessary to inform stakeholders about workplace hazards and risks in order to improve and advance injury prevention policies and practices for this dangerous industry. The most comprehensive fatal injury surveillance effort currently in the United States is the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), which covers occupational fatalities in all U.S. industries, including production agriculture. However, this surveillance does not include many categories of fatalities that occur during agricultural work or on production agriculture worksites. To better capture the human cost of production agriculture, the authors of this paper call for the collection of additional data with a broader scope that supplements, not replaces, the current CFOI. This paper describes challenges in surveillance, highlights key procedural gaps, and offers recommendations for advancing national surveillance of fatal traumatic injuries associated with production agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine and describe fatal and non-fatal agricultural injuries documented in Florida. We used Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) data and AgInjuryNews.org (AIN) data from 2015 through 2019 to identify 48 fatal and 187 non-fatal injuries during the five-year study period, with 86% (40 fatal, 175 non-fatal) of these injuries being occupational. A total of 101 (43%) people were injured as a result of transportation incidents. Major injury sources were vehicles (46%) and environmental sources (heat, lightning, etc.) (14%). Using AIN data, we identified risks for youth under the age of 18 and for individuals age 65 and older. This study suggests the need for additional injury surveillance efforts to gather demographic information to identify at-risk populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We calculated coder agreement level for agricultural injuries obtained from electronic news data. • Coder agreement levels were determined. • There was a high level of agreement between the coders. • Five key themes were highlighted for coders' agreement and accurate coding. Objectives: To determine coders' agreement level for the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) source of injury and injury event codes, and the Farm and Agricultural Injury Classification (FAIC) code in the AgInjuryNews.org and to determine the effects of supplemental information and follow-up discussion in final code assignments. Methods: Two independent researchers initially coded 1304 injury cases from AgInjurynews.org using the OIICS and the FAIC coding schemes. Code agreement levels for injury source, event, and FAIC and the effect of supplemental information and follow-up discussions on final coding was assessed. Results: Coders' agreement levels were almost perfect for OIICS source and event categories at the 3-digit level, with lower agreement at the 4-digit level. By using supplemental information and follow-up discussion, coders improved the coding accuracy by an average 20% for FAIC. Supplemental information and follow-up discussions had helped finalize the disagreed codes 55% of the time for OIICS source coding assignments and 40% of time for OIICS event coding assignments for most detailed 4-digit levels. Five key themes emerged regarding accurate and consistent coding of the agricultural injuries: inclusion/exclusion based on industry classification system; inconsistent/discrepant reports; incomplete/nonspecific reports; effects of supplemental information on coding; and differing interpretations of code selection rules. Practical applications: Quantifying the level of agreement for agricultural injuries will lead to a better understanding of coding discrepancies and may uncover areas for improvement to coding scheme itself. High level of initial and final agreement with FAIC and OIICS codes suggest that these coding schemes are user-friendly and amenable to widespread use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious, restrictive, non-fatal injuries are commonplace in large animal agriculture including in pork and dairy production. Primary care clinicians often have few resources to facilitate workers' return to work and have difficulties communicating work restrictions/limitations to workers and their employers. This project developed SafeReturnToWork.org, a web-based platform to aid physicians and farmers in farmworkers' timely and safe return to work. This prototype characterizes the duties of dairy and pork workers, and facilitates the creation of applicable light duty job assemblies for farmers and farmworkers by physicians and other healthcare providers. Guided by interviews and focus groups with physicians, farmers, and farmworkers, the system was developed for use with workplace injuries that could eventually link to human resource department systems, an electronic health record, or expand to other industries beyond agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Agricultural safety and health researchers have used a variety of classification and coding schemes to identify and categorize injury, illness, and disease associated with agricultural hazards. This paper demonstrates how the Farm and Agricultural Injury Classification (FAIC) and Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) coding schemes can be used in tandem for all agricultural injuries. Methods: Specific cases from the AgInjuryNews.org database were selected to illustrate how the FAIC and OIICS codes can be applied to agricultural injury, and to illustrate limitations that still exist with each coding scheme. Results: Using the FAIC and OIICS together provided a clearer picture of an injury incident by combining more explicit occupational and non‐occupational exposures with incident type details in a single table. Conclusions: Both FAIC and OIICS coding schemes depend on sufficient information being available from injury reports. This paper concluded with suggestions for improving coding of agricultural injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skid steers or loaders are becoming prolific in U.S. agriculture - as are the injuries and fatalities related to their use. A review of incidents as queried in AgInjuryNews from 2016 to 2017 revealed an overrepresentation of youth being involved in these tragic incidents. This raises concerns over parental attitudes and beliefs about the safety of these machines. Skid steer incidents do not appear to be a result from a lack of safety education materials, however. Indeed, manufacturers, the Centers for Disease Control, and many state extension systems have safety manuals and general instruction, including YouTube videos and online resources. Thus, there appears to be a significant gap between safety knowledge and practice. There is also a lack of published research, including intervention strategies, training evaluation, and translational/implementation studies specific to skid steer machines. This review of youth incidents is therefore also a call for further research for foundational studies regarding attitudes and behaviors involving skid steers in agriculture, intervention models, and efforts to translate prevention knowledge beyond the existing materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire departments have right-of-entry to most commercial industrial sites and preemptively map them to identify the onsite resources and hazards they need to promptly and safely respond to an emergency event. This is not the case for private farms. Emergency responders are blind to resources and hazards prior to arrival and must spend critical minutes locating them during an emergency response at a farm location. The original 2013 Farm Mapping to Assist, Protect and Prepare Emergency Responders (Farm MAPPER) project was undertaken to develop a method to give emergency responders an up-to-date view of on-farm hazard information to safely and efficiently conduct emergency response activities on private agricultural operations. In 2017, an augmented reality version of Farm MAPPER was developed to combine the technological advantages of geographic information system-based data points with a heads-up display and graphical overlay of superimposed hazard imagery and informative icons. The development and testing of this iOS- and Android-ready prototype uncovered lessons learned applicable to other mobile-based apps targeting farmers, ranchers, and rural populations faced with limited or inconsistent mobile internet connectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Injuries related to the operation of off-road vehicles (ORVs), including all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), continue to be a significant public health concern, especially in rural areas and agricultural production. In fact, a previous study of ATV-related occupational deaths utilizing the Bureau of Labor Statistics' annual Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries found 61% were in the agriculture production industry, and the ATV-related fatality rate per million workers in agriculture was 143 times greater than all other industries. This study was designed to describe the characteristics of ATV injuries and fatalities by using three different national databases. Methods (if applicable): Data on ATV-related injuries and fatalities during the years 2015–2017 was obtained from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), AgInjuryNews.org (AIN), and Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). Results/Findings: We are currently analyzing the data for this ongoing study. A preliminary analysis was performed on FARS, AIN, and NEISS for 2015–2017. By using FARS, we identified 1004 ATV roadway fatalities in 974 crashes. These crashes were mostly single-vehicle (76%) and not a collision with a motor vehicle (77%; overturn/rollover, fall from the vehicle, hit fixed object) crashes. There were 156 fatal and 114 non-fatal agriculture-related ATV injuries by using AIN dataset. Of these injuries, 46% were to youth aged 16 years or younger, and 25% of the victims were using ATV for farm work at the time of the incident. Using NEISS data, an estimated 325,096 ATV-related injuries were treated in U.S. emergency departments from 2015–2017. Almost 30% of these injuries were to youth aged 16 years or younger. Practical Application: By presenting the results from these three datasets, we are hoping to provide a more complete picture of the burden of ATV-related fatalities and injuries. This is much needed to effectively inform injury prevention efforts in rural areas and in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]