A National Overview of Youth andInjury Trends on U.S. Farms, 2001-2014

Highlights The total number of injuries to all youth on farms consistently declined during the 14-year period from 2001 to 2014. Injuries to household farm youth, after initial declines, increased in 2012 and 2014. Although progress in farm youth safety has been made, farms continue to be hazardous places for youth. Abstract. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducted injury surveillance for youth on U.S. farms for two decades to measure childhood injury burden, track injury trends, and monitor hazardous injury exposures. The Childhood Agricultural Injury Survey (CAIS), a regionally stratified telephone survey, collected injury and demographic data for all youth less than 20 years of age on U.S. farms. Results from the 2014 survey are provided. Trend analyses for all survey years were conducted using a Poisson regression model with generalized estimating equations. Rate ratios with corresponding 95% confidence intervals were calculated from the model. In 2014, there were an estimated 11,942 youth farm injuries. Of these, 63% occurred to household youth. Youth between the ages of 10 and 15 incurred the most injuries, and 34% of the injuries were work-related. The total number of injuries to all youth on farms consistently declined during the 14-year period from 2001 to 2014, with annual injury rates ranging from 13.5 to 5.7 per 1,000 farms. The injury rates for household youth decreased through 2009 but increased slightly in 2012 and 2014. Farms continue to be hazardous environments for youth. Although there has been a significant decrease in the overall numbers and rates of youth farm injuries over the past decades, researchers should continue to monitor areas that remain a concern. One area that is specifically troublesome is the increase in injury rates observed for household youth in 2014. Keywords: Agriculture, Farm, Injury, Trends, Youth.

Using a Neural Network Analysis to Assess Stressors in the Farming Community

In the 1980s and 1990s, with decreasing numbers of full-time farmers and adverse economic conditions, chronic stress was common in farmers, and remains so today. A neural network was implemented to conduct an in-depth analysis of stress risk factors. Two Colorado farm samples (1992–1997) were combined (n = 1501) and divided into training and test samples. The outcome, stress, was measured using seven stress-related items from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale. The initial model contained 32 predictors. Mean squared error and model fit parameters were used to identify the best fitting model in the training data. Upon testing for reproducibility, the test data mirrored the training data results with 20 predictors. The results highlight the importance of health, debt, and pesticide-related illness in increasing the risk of stress. Farmers whose primary occupation was farming had lower stress levels than those who worked off the farm. Neural networks reflect how the brain processes signals from its environment and algorithms allow the neurons “to learn”. This approach handled correlated data and gave greater insight into stress than previous approaches. It revealed how important providing health care access and reducing farm injuries are to reducing farm stress.

Farm Injuries: Animal Most Common, Machinery Most Lethal: An NTDB Study

To characterize both emergency room (ER) and hospital discharge dispositions of patients presenting with farm-related injuries. The 2012 National Trauma Data Bank was queried in August 2017 for injuries occurring on a farm. Patients were stratified by gender, age group, race, Injury Severity Score (ISS), and injury type. We performed logistic regression analysis to correlate parameters with likelihood of discharge home or death. P values < 0.05 were considered significant. Five thousand six hundred thirty-one patients were identified, the majority of whom were male (72%) and white (85%). The most common mechanisms of injury included animal-related (29%), followed by falls, vehicles, and other causes. The highest ISSs were seen in vehicular injuries (11% ISS of 251) and the greatest fatality rate was seen in machinery injuries (4%). Four thousand seven hundred fifty-three (84%) patients were admitted to the hospital, and 4056 (72%) were discharged home from the ER or after hospitalization. One hundred thirty patients (2%) died of their farm-related injury. Most patients presenting to the ER with farm-related injuries survive, are admitted to the hospital, and are ultimately discharged home. Few patients die of their injuries. Animal injury is most common and machinery injury most lethal of farm trauma patients presenting to the ER.

A Study on the Determinants of Expenditure Incurred for Agricultural Workers for Illness Related to Health Hazards in Theni District, Tamilnadu

Agricultural work all over the world is hazardous, resulting in a large number of injuries to farmers or even death. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the agricultural sector is one of the most hazardous to health worldwide (ILO, 2000). Olatunji et al. (2013) pointed out that the productivity of farmers is affected by some occupational hazards and health problems such as Malaria, musculoskeletal disorders, farm injuries, yellow fever, Diarrhoea diseases, respiratory diseases and skin disorder (Olatunji SO, 2013). They usually get low wages, conditions of work put an excessive burden on them, and the employment which they irregular. Their income is low, and employment is unequal. Since they possess no skill or training; they have no alternative job opportunities either. Health system in our country is bogged down with some of chronic maladies like inappropriate budgetary allocation and a “top-down” hierarchy with multiple levels of operation which have led to compromise in effectiveness and quality of the services. Out of pocket expenditure becomes a burden for the poor especially when they have to spend vast amounts from their disposable income. The financial burden borne by people with healthcare and their families as a result of their disease depends on their economic status. In the poorest countries, people with health and their families bear almost the whole cost of the medical care they can afford. Besides excess healthcare expenditure, chronic diseases impose great economic burdens in the form of loss of productivity and foregone economic growth.

Pediatric Farm Injuries

Introduction. Agriculture is an industry where family members oftenlive and work on the same premises. This study evaluated injury patternsand outcomes in children from farm-related accidents. Methods. A 10-year retrospective review of farm-accident relatedinjuries was conducted of patients 17 years and younger. Data collectedincluded demographics, injury mechanism, accident details, injuryseverity and patterns, treatments required, hospitalization details, anddischarge disposition. Results. Sixty-five patients were included; 58.5% were male and themean age was 9.7 years. Median Injury Severity Score and GlasgowComa Scale were 5 and 15, respectively. Accident mechanisms includedanimal-related (43.1%), fall (21.5%), and motor vehicle (21.5%).Soft tissue injuries, concussions and upper extremity fractures werethe most common injuries observed (58.5%, 29.2%, and 26.2%,respectively). Twenty-six patients (40%) required surgical intervention.Mean hospital length of stay was 3.4 ± 4.7 days. The majority ofpatients were discharged to home (n = 62, 95.4%) and two patientssuffered permanent disability. Conclusion. Overall, outcomes for this population were favorable,but additional measures to increase safety, such as fall prevention,animal handling, and driver safety training should be advocated.KS J Med 2017;10(4):92-95.

Occupational agricultural injuries among the preadolescent workers of West Bengal, India

Introduction Agricultural injuries are an important factor in mortality and morbidity for populations of preadolescents globally. Working preadolescents in agricultural sector are exposed to occupational risks and injury in India. Objective This study mainly assesses the nature of injuries among the preadolescent agricultural workers of West Bengal, India. Methods The survey was done by collecting the data on agricultural injuries from the Hooghly district of West Bengal. The injury data for 7 years between years 2010 and 2016 were collected by conducting a survey and personal interviews with the victims. The questionnaire-based approach was used for data collection information on the injury characteristics. Results The agricultural injury incident rate was 8.99 (male) and 7.89 (female) per 1000 workers/year. The leading causes of farm injuries were hand tools (65.7%). The most frequently involved tools were spades and sickles. The main cause of hand tool injuries was repetitive work, which lead to fatigue and slippage of hand tools from the hand. The study indicated that preadolescent workers are highly prone to injuries in their occupation, mostly affecting the toes (27.8% and 26.3%) and fingers (24.8% and 25%) in both male and female preadolescents, which consequently affected their health, productivity and work performance. Conclusion This study concludes that (1) agricultural injuries affecting different body parts such as toes, fingers, feet and ankles. (2) Occurrence of injuries was much higher among males than females. (3) Hand tools accounted for the majority of injuries followed by farm machinery. (4) Cut injuries are the main ones followed by lacerations, abrasions, sprains and contusions.