Injury and illness surveillance of U.S. agricultural workers: assessment of recommendations and actions.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Chari R ; Kress AM ; Madrigano J
• Description:
  Agriculture remains one of America's oldest and most valued industries, but it is also one of the most hazardous. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, in 2015, almost 36,000 farmworkers experienced an injury event (5.8 per 100 full-time workers). An estimated 1,900 farmworkers suffered an illness event (31.8 per 10,000 full-time workers). These rates were higher than those experienced by workers in other hazardous occupations, such as fishing and hunting (4.2 injuries per 100 full-time workers), forestry and logging (2.2 injuries per 100 full-time workers and 5.6 illnesses per 10,000 full-time workers), mining (1.4 injuries per 100 full-time workers and 7.5 illnesses per 10,000 full-time workers), and construction (3.4 injuries per 100 full-time workers and 8.6 illnesses per 10,000 full-time workers). In addition, about 400 fatalities (8.3 percent of total deaths across all industries) occurred while working on farms, compared with 23 (0.5 percent) and 120 (2.5 percent) fatalities in fishing and hunting and mining worker populations, respectively. Children working on farms are a particularly vulnerable population for agriculture-related illness, injury, and death. In 2012, an estimated 7,780 household youth experienced injuries on farms. These statistics reveal a stark reality: The small population of workers directly responsible for feeding, clothing, and fueling the nation are shouldering a heavy public health burden. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's (NIOSH's) Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (AgFF) Program provides leadership to prevent harm to workers in the three named sectors. Since its inception, the AgFF Program has spearheaded numerous surveillance initiatives to understand the magnitude of injuries and illnesses in agricultural worker populations, identify vulnerable groups, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. In 2012, the program underwent a review from an independent panel convened to evaluate progress in program relevance and impact. The panel report included several recommendations for NIOSH to improve agricultural injury and illness surveillance. In certain instances, the panel suggested specific activities to perform to improve surveillance, include vulnerable populations, and extend NIOSH research to address emerging health issues faced by farmworkers. However, the panel report itself was unclear regarding how NIOSH should prioritize recommendations and actually implement activities. In 2015, NIOSH contracted with the RAND Corporation to assess options for action in response to panel recommendations. The goal of this report is to provide NIOSH with an assessment of the feasibility and desirability of carrying out actions to meet surveillance-related recommendations given current AgFF Program resources and priorities. Many possible actions for meeting recommendations were contained in the panel report, and we conducted literature reviews and targeted interviews to detail how actions could be implemented and identify barriers to their achievement. Table S.1 describes the surveillance-related recommendations and actions. For each action, we determined whether it could be achieved through (1) an extramural funding mechanism, (2) partnership engagement or partner capabilities, and (3) direct action by NIOSH. We also constructed two versions of actions achievable through an extramural funding mechanism: an ideal version and a satisfactory version. The ideal version refers to our estimation of the types of tasks and time frames needed to either fully achieve the action or ensure that implementation results in meaningful impacts on improvement of farmworker health and safety. The satisfactory version refers to tasks and time frames that may result in lesser (compared with the ideal), but still acceptable, impacts. Different costs and timelines were estimated based on the two versions. We applied criteria to the actions that were relevant for assessing feasibility (costs and other resources, partnership engagement, information availability and accessibility, policy barriers, and timelines) and desirability (relevance to program priorities, information quality, and action impacts). For all criteria except costs and resources, we constructed an ordinal five-point rating scale based on defined attributes of the criterion relevant to the accomplishment of an action. Low values (1-2) reflected adverse or unfavorable conditions for an action, as contrasted with high values (4-5), which reflected favorable conditions for action achievement. Because we lacked information on planned allocation of resources within the AgFF Program, for the costs and resources criterion, we presented general estimates and a descriptive assessment of implications. For each action, we calculated average scores across criteria for three conditions: achievability (average of all feasibility and desirability criteria), feasibility (average of the feasibility criteria), and desirability (average of the desirability criteria). Overall, we find that direct action and extramural funding mechanisms tend to show higher achievability and feasibility than do actions that depend on partner capabilities for implementation. Actions that depend on partner engagement, resources, or capabilities may have lengthier timelines for establishing or building partnerships and negotiating agreements (including data use and data-sharing). In addition, there is uncertainty about the availability and accessibility of information that could be obtained through such partnerships. When we focused on desirability, however, the results are more mixed. Top actions are associated with all three implementation mechanisms.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Agriculture Air Pollutants, Occupational Air Pollution, Indoor Environmental Monitoring Occupational Health Preceptorship Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Accident Prevention Agricultural Workers Agriculture, Forestry And Fishing Sector Research Program Children Cost Estimates Disease Prevention Diseases Effectiveness Research Families Farmers Farm Workers Fatalities Feasibility Assessment Injuries Injury Prevention Intervention Intervention Effectiveness Occupational Hazards Occupational Health Programs Occupational Safety Programs Partnership Recommendations Surveillance Surveillance Programs Young Workers

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• Publisher:
  RAND Corporation
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Book ; Final Contract Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; District of Columbia ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OD - Office of the Director
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-64
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20060223
• Citation:
  Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, RR-1500-NIOSH, 2017 Oct; :1-64
• Email:
  Ramya_Chari@rand.org
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  RAND Corporation
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d45ed660344254da4d7066cb983725790103fb2910a50208e6d92a73113ca9b4a3d346faabd11aa2cc0fcc472e7990900e5f1215f021bc6f5a0951a263577e28
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181876/cdc_181876_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 481.47 KB ]