A Conference on the Aging Farm Community: Using Current Health and Safety Status to Map Future Action

Details

• Personal Author:
  Petrea RE
• Description:
  Goal of the Project: To publish a document that summarizes the health and safety status of aging farmers in the United States and makes specific targeted recommendations for future action in research, health related practices, prevention education and outreach, and public policy. The conference portion, with invited participation, is planned for alternating sessions of oral presentations on topics deemed pertinent by the Conference Planning Committee. Each oral session will be followed by workgroup discussion activities using the Nominal Group Technique over the 2½ days. Participants will include agricultural safety and health professionals from academics, public health, cooperative extension, primary and secondary health providers, state and federal agencies, and farm organizations as well as at least 20% of participants being active farmers aged 55 and over. Invited participants will have travel, lodging and meal costs covered. The proceedings document will be based upon the presentations and workgroup processes and reviewed by the project advisory committee for accuracy and will be available in both paper and electronic copies. Background: As farmers 55 and older, both men and women, are the majority community within farming, as well as holding the vast majority of the wealth contained within production agriculture, a concerted effort to document the current injury and health status of older farmers, defined as those 55 years old or older, either male or female has been lacking to date. This is counter intuitive since the average age of farmers continues to rise, the only age category in the Census of Agriculture that has risen significantly since 1992 is farmers over age 70 and for example the average age of farmers in Illinois is over 55 and in Iowa over 65. The average age of women farm operators is shown to be even higher. It is not uncommon for farmers to work well into their 70's and 80's, some due to desire, others due to lack of liquid capital, lack of pension income and the ongoing need for labor on the farm. The scant research available indicates that male farmers face an increased average fatality rate with the injury rate unknown, and injury and fatality data on women is mostly lacking due to the "invisible" role of women as well as the differentiation of tasks that routinely take place farms. Finally, while much is known about many impacts on aging bodies; increased health difficulties, increasing disease status, and increase use of medications; little is known of the specific impacts of these changes on the risks of non-fatal or fatal injuries connected to agricultural tasks. At the National Occupational Research Agenda hearings concerns of the aging farm population was offered in both verbal and written form. Conference Objectives: 1) Facilitate the presentation of informed opinions regarding the current status of agricultural safety and health as regards older farmers. 2) Provide a forum for discussions on the future research, education, training, and programming needs of agricultural safety and health as regards older farmers. 3) Afford practicing older farmers an opportunity to give their opinions on and their appraisal of the agricultural safety and health environment in which they work. 4) Foster the development of recommendations on future agricultural safety and health policy related to older farmers by laying a foundation of information and opinion upon which to build those recommendations. Conference Processes: The planning committee consisted of 12 individuals representing 7 academic institutions (1 Canadian), NIOSH, and the Canadian Ag. Safety Association. Process evaluation findings indicate that planning committee members consider the project worthwhile, that the conference met the objectives of the planning committee, and that follow-up after the conference may be needed. A total of 40 participants attended the conference in March, 2007 with representation from 11 academic institutions (1 Canadian), 5 NIOSH Ag Research Centers, 9 practicing farmers (Vermont, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Texas, Illinois, California) and 4 other entities (American Farm Bureau Federation, Illinois Farm Bureau, Easter Seals of Iowa, and Agriwellness, Inc.) Outcome evaluation findings from the question "To what extent did this session enhance your understanding of the topics presented?" using a four place semantic deferential response with 4 = Very Much on one end and 1 = Very Little on the other end yielded a an overall ranking of all presenters of 3.48. Outcome evaluation findings revealed that respondents indicated, each with a 96% score, that all four conference objectives had been reached. Key Findings 1. Aging farmers are worth the time, energy and expense to develop the appropriate strategies and the interdisciplinary collaboration needed to inform and facilitate efforts toward changing unsafe attitudes and behaviors. A prime example would be the development of recommendations to assist this population in selecting tasks that are suitable given their current physical and medical status. 2. Methodologically sound evaluations are needed to provide evidence that health screenings actually result in farmers entering the care system and getting follow-up treatment. 3. The area of sleep management, sleep loss and the build up of sleep debt as well as the impact of all three as a potential contributor to injury incidents needs to be publicized within the aging farm community as well as incorporated into programs directed at this population. 4. Researchers as well as practitioners working with the aging farm community should build institutional alliances with geronotological societies, societies on aging and direct-providers of disability services to facilitate their work and distribute their findings. 5. Educational needs related to the aging farm community are present at all health care provider levels. Primary activities should include the development of integrated rural training programs and the strengthening of interdisciplinary integration within existing programs. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Age Factors Aging Agriculture Farmers Occupational Health Safety Sleep
• Keywords:
  Age Factors Agricultural Industry Agricultural Safety Agricultural Workers Information Dissemination Occupational Safety And Health
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; Illinois ; Iowa ; New York ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 1 ; OSHA Region 2 ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 6 ; OSHA Region 7 ; OSHA Region 9 ; Texas ; Vermont ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-7
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20061099
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2022-100323
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, R13-OH-009184, 2009 Nov; :1-7
• Contact Point Address:
  Robert Petrea, PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Ag. & Bio Engineering, 1304 West Pennsylvania Ave., 338 AESB, Urbana, IL 61801
• Email:
  repetrea@illinois.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2010
• Performing Organization:
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20070301
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20080831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4af2f67f448f134444ca3734fd538faeefb1c31fb3d34eb6215cbbd3ffc4ed3e62835259fc43f40c3707418c01e804deee07993648123b65f10aad440d908367
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/219020/cdc_219020_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 108.74 KB ]