Non-fatal occupational injuries in British agriculture

Emergency presentations for farm-related injuries in older adults residing in south-western Victoria, Australia

INTRODUCTION

Farm workers are at high risk for injuries, and epidemiological data are needed to plan resource allocation.

OBJECTIVE

This study identified regions with high farm-related injury rates in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, for residents aged ≥50 yr.

DESIGN

Retrospective synthesis using electronic medical records of emergency presentations occurring during 2017-2019 inclusive for Local Government Areas (LGA) in the study region. For each LGA, age-standardised incidence rates (per 1000 population/year) were calculated.

FINDINGS

For men and women combined, there were 31 218 emergency presentations for any injury, and 1150 (3.68%) of these were farm-related. The overall age-standardised rate for farm-related injury presentations was 2.6 (95% CI 2.4-2.7); men had a higher rate than women (4.1, 95% CI 3.9-4.4 versus 1.2, 95% CI 1.0-1.3, respectively). For individual LGAs, the highest rates of farm-related emergency presentations occurred in Moyne and Southern Grampians, both rural LGAs. Approximately two-thirds of farm-related injuries occurred during work activities (65.0%), and most individuals arrived at the hospital by transport classified as "other" (including private car, 83.3%). There were also several common injury causes identified: "other animal related injury" (20.2%), "cutting, piercing object" (19.5%), "fall ⟨1 m" (13.1%), and "struck by or collision with object" (12.5%). Few injuries were caused by machinery (1.7%) and these occurred mainly in the LGA of Moyne (65%).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This study provides data to inform future research and resource allocation for the prevention of farm-related injuries.

Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Economical Cost of Work-Related Injuries Among Olive Workers in the Achaia Region, Greece

Background Olive gathering involves tree climbing, carrying heavy loads, navigating rough terrain, and using sharp tools. However, little is known about occupational injuries among olive workers. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence and risk factors of occupational injuries among olive workers in a rural Greek area and to assess the financial burden on the health system and insurance funds. Methods A questionnaire was administered to 166 olive workers in the Aigialeia municipality in the Achaia region, Greece. The questionnaire contained detailed information on demographic characteristics, medical history, working environment, protective measures, gathering tools, and type and site of injuries. Moreover, data were recorded about the duration of hospitalization, medical examinations and treatment received, sick leaves, complications, and rate of re-injury. Direct economic costs were calculated for hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients. The associations between olive workers' characteristics, risk factors, and occupational injury within the last year were examined using log-binomial regression models. Results In total, 85 injuries were recorded in 50 workers. The prevalence of one or more injuries in the last year was 30.1%. Factors associated with a higher rate of injury were male gender, age > 50 years, working experience > 24 years, history of arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus, climbing habits, and non-use of protective gloves. The average cost of agricultural injuries was more than 1400 € per injury. The cost seems to be associated with the severity of the injury, as injuries requiring hospitalization were associated with increased costs, higher cost of medication, as well as more days of sick leave. Losses due to sick leave cause the greatest financial costs. Conclusions Farm-related injuries are quite usual among olive workers in Greece. Injury risk is influenced by gender, age, working experience, medical history, climbing habits, and use of protective gloves. Days off work have the greatest financial cost. These findings can be useful as a starting point to train olive workers to reduce the incidence of farm-related injuries in Greece. Knowledge of risk factors for farm-related injuries and diseases could help the development of proper interventions to minimize the problem.

Occupational injury rates among Norwegian farmers: A sociotechnical perspective

INTRODUCTION

This study addressed relative injury risk among Norwegian farmers, who are mostly self-employed and run small farm enterprises. The aim was to explore the relative importance of individual, enterprise, and work environment risks for occupational injury and to discuss the latent conditions for injuries using sociotechnical system theory.

METHOD

Injury report and risk factors were collected through a survey among Norwegian farm owners in November 2012. The response rate was 40% (n = 2,967). Annual work hours were used to calculate injury rates within groups. Poisson regression using the log of hours worked as the offset variable allowed for the modeling of adjusted rate ratios for variables predictive of injury risk. Finally, safety climate measures were introduced to assess potential moderating effects on risk.

RESULTS

Results showed that the most important risk factors for injuries were the design of the workplace, type of production, and off-farm work hours. The main results remained unchanged when adding safety climate measures, but the measures moderated the injury risk for categories of predominant production and increased the risk for farmers working with family members and/or employees. An overall finding is how the risk factors were interrelated.

CONCLUSIONS

The study identified large structural diversities within and between groups of farmers. The study drew attention to operating conditions rather than individual characteristics. The farmer's role (managerial responsibility) versus regulation and safety climate is important for discussions of injury risk. Practical Applications: We need to study sub-groups to understand how regulation and structural changes affect work conditions and management within different work systems, conditioned by production. It is important to encourage actors in the political-economic system to become involved in issues that were found to affect the safety of farmers.

Injury epidemiology of workers by age, sex and industrial classification using the medical claim data of National Health Insurance in South Korea, 2012-2015: a population-based retrospective study

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to evaluate the risk of inpatient hospitalisation for all-cause injuries, according to age, sex and industrial classification (IC) in South Korea.

DESIGN

A population-based retrospective study.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Data from the National Health Insurance Database on medical claims for the entire population of South Korean workers aged 25-59 years from January 2012 to December 2015 were retrieved. We observed 30 900 712 person-years (63.1%) in male workers and 18 105 272 person-years (36.9%) in female workers.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The inpatient hospitalisation for all-cause injury was defined as admission for which the principal diagnosis included S00-T98 in the Korean version of International Classification of Diseases-10 codes.

RESULTS

Of 788 575 hospitalisations for all-cause injuries from 2012 to 2015, there were 565 107 cases in male workers (1 828.8 per 100 000 person-years) and 223 468 cases in female workers (1 234.3 per 100 000 person-years). The top five ICs with hospitalisation rate ratios (HRR) for all-cause injuries in both sexes compared with the financial intermediation IC included agriculture, hunting and forestry (HRR (95% CI); male: 2.09 (1.98 to 2.20); female: 1.53 (1.40 to 1.67)); mining and quarrying (male: 2.05 (1.92 to 2.19); female: 1.54 (1.27 to 1.87)) and fishing (male: 1.68 (1.57 to 1.80); female: 1.71 (1.51 to 1.93)). A U-shaped relationship occurred between age and risk for injuries in males; however, only a linear relationship was shown in females, regardless of IC.

CONCLUSIONS

The risk of injures varied by IC. The workers in agriculture, hunting, forestry, mining, quarrying and fishing were more vulnerable to injuries. The risk for injuries were higher among men and the age effect on this risk differed by sex. Thus, policy makers need to consider specific measures for prevention of injuries according to age, sex and IC.

Incidence, patterns and associated factors for occupational injuries among agricultural workers in a developing country

Background: Injuries are common among agricultural workers, and a large section of the population is employed in agriculture worldwide. We aimed to determine the incidence, patterns and associated risk factors of occupational injuries among the agricultural workers in a developing country.

Methods: A cross-sectional study in Hyderabad, Pakistan was conducted from December 2012 to February 2013. Information was collected about incidence, pattern and associated risk factors of occupational injuries from 472 agricultural workers. Injury incidence and patterns for place, severity, type, agent, parts of body affected and work activity were calculated. Analysis was performed using SPSS version 19.0. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to calculate the adjusted odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval, to identify the putative risk factors for occupational injuries.

Results: Incidence of occupational injuries was 35.0 per 100 per year (95% CI: 28.9 - 42.7). Cuts (70%) and hand tools (71%) were the most common type and agent for injury, respectively. Majority of injuries occurred during harvesting (55%). Increasing age [AOR 1.03 (95% CI: 1.01 - 1.05)], income <6000PKR/month [AOR 2.27 (95% CI: 1.08 - 4.76)] and driving tractor [AOR 2.58 (95% CI: 1.25 -5.33)] increase the risk for injuries.

Conclusion: There was a high burden of injuries among the agricultural workers in Pakistan. Large-scale studies are required to further characterize the risk of injuries and develop preventive strategies to protect agricultural workers.

Workplace Accident Prevalence and Associated Factors among Tobacco Farm in São Lourenço do Sul-RS, Brazil

Agriculture has the highest risk of accidents. In Brazil the reality of this situation is unknown owing to scarcity of studies and underreporting of workplace accidents in rural areas. This article aims to evaluate workplace accident prevalence and associated factors among tobacco farm in Sao Lourenco do Sul-RS, Brazil. Cross-sectional study with 488 tobacco farmers, assessing sociodemographic, behavioural, labour characteristics and association with workplace accidents occurring in their lifetime. The injury prevalence was 24%. Being male (PR 1.62; 95%CI 1.04-2.52), and tenant farmer (PR 1.87; 95%CI 1.29-2.72), bundling tobacco leaves (PR 2.00; 95%CI 1.14-3.52) and having minor psychiatric disorders (PR 1.58; 95%CI 1.06-2.35) were positively associated with accidents. 46% of serious injuries caused superficial lesions and 26% caused fractures. Rural workplace accident prevention policies need to be established, particularly for tobacco farming. Larger studies are needed to understand work process-related aspects that increase the risk of accidents.

Urban green spaces activities: A preparatory groundwork for a safety management system

INTRODUCTION

Urban green spaces works and maintenance are high-risk activities and usually represent possible sources of injuries. The management issues are complex and strongly influenced by companies' policies in terms of safety management and human factor. A high number of tasks-including protecting public health and safety and safe working procedures-need to be faced by professional arborists or gardeners.

METHOD

The present paper provides a preparatory groundwork for modeling and describing the real risk levels during the abovementioned activities. The methodology represents a useful tool for decision making both for group leaders and safety coordinators. This goal is reached by collecting data emerging from several workplaces located in North East Italy regarding the frequency and severity of injuries.

RESULTS

The preliminary results point out that the most frequent injuries in green maintenance activities are represented by cuts, contusions, and ocular lesions, but none of them have lead to particularly serious consequences for the operators; indeed, the high levels of severity are related to traumas, fractures, and acute lumbar herniated discs. The riskiest activities are related to pruning, especially using mobile elevating work platforms, and grass cutting, especially when operated in escarpments and banks. Workers' behavior and companies' safety policies are key elements for a correct safety management system.

Distribution and characteristics of occupational injuries and diseases among farmers: a retrospective analysis of workers' compensation claims

BACKGROUND

Research indicates occupational injuries and diseases are not evenly distributed among workers. We investigated the distribution and characteristics of compensated occupational injuries and diseases requiring medical care in the Finnish farming population.

METHODS

The study population consisted of 93,564 Finnish farmers, spouses, and salaried family members who were covered by the mandatory workers' compensation insurance in 2002. This population had a total of 133,207 occupational injuries and 9,148 occupational diseases over a 26-year period (1982-2008).

RESULTS

Clustering of claims was observed. Nearly half (47.1%) of the population had no compensated claims while 52.9% had at least one; 50.9% of farmers had one or more injuries and 8.1% had one or more diseases. Ten percent of the population had half of injury cases, and 3% of the population had half of occupational disease cases. Claims frequently involved work tasks related to animal husbandry and repair and maintenance of farm machinery. Injury and disease characteristics (work activity, cause, ICD-10 code) differed between individuals with high and low personal claim rate. Injuries and diseases of the musculoskeletal system had a tendency to reoccur among those with high claim rate. These outcomes were often related to strenuous working motions and postures in labor-intensive animal husbandry.

CONCLUSIONS

Analyses of longitudinal insurance data contributes to better understanding of the long-term risk of occupational injury and disease among farmers. We suggest focusing on recurrent health outcomes and their causes among high risk populations could help design more effective interventions in agriculture and other industries.

Work-related injuries and fatalities among farmers in South Korea

BACKGROUND

Agricultural injuries are increasing in South Korea according to its workforce's reduced size and increased age. Available data are insufficient to exactly understand present situation. This study evaluated the patterns and characteristics of agricultural injury and assessed the injury rates.

METHODS

We analyzed the entry and compensation data compiled in 2005 by the Safety Aid System of Farm Workers, South Korea's government insurance for agricultural injury. We examined the general characteristics, rates, and mortality of agricultural injury.

RESULTS

There were 11,931 compensated events, including 219 compensated deaths. Farm injuries occurred most frequently in October, and most injuries were unintentional. The incidence and fatality rates were 16.67 per 1,000 person-years and 30.59 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. Most number of agricultural injuries occurred in October. The most common cause of deaths was accidents caused by machinery use (35.64%) for males and other transport accidents (23.53%) for females, while the most common cause of injuries for females was falls (45.39%). Incidence and mortality rate of agricultural injuries were higher in elders.

CONCLUSIONS

Although injury rates may have been underestimated owing to data limitations, we are confident that South Korea's rate is higher than those seen in other countries or occupations.

Accident rates and types among self-employed private forest owners

Half of all Swedish forests are owned by private individuals, and at least 215,000 people work in these privately owned forest holdings. However, only lethal accidents are systematically monitored among self-employed forest workers. Therefore, data from the registries of the Swedish Work Environment Authority, the Labor Insurance Organization and the regional University Hospital in Umeå were gathered to allow us to perform a more in-depth assessment of the rate and types of accidents that occurred among private forest owners. We found large differences between the registries in the type and number of accidents that were reported. We encountered difficulties in defining "self-employed forest worker" and also in determining whether the accidents that did occur happened during work or leisure time. Consequently, the estimates for the accident rate that we obtained varied from 32 to > or = 4300 injured persons per year in Sweden, depending on the registry that was consulted, the definition of the sample population that was used, and the accident severity definition that was employed. Nevertheless, the different registries gave a consistent picture of the types of accidents that occur while individuals are participating in self-employed forestry work. Severe accidents were relatively common, as self-employed forestry work fatalities constituted 7% of the total number of fatalities in the work authority registry. Falling trees were associated with many of these fatal accidents as well as with accidents that resulted in severe non-fatal injuries. Thus, unsafe work methods appeared more related to the occurrence of an accident than the equipment that was being used at the time of the accident (e.g., a chainsaw). Improvement of the workers' skills should therefore be considered to be an important prevention measure that should be undertaken in this field. The challenges in improving the safety in these smallest of companies, which fall somewhere between the purview of occupational and consumer safety, are exemplified and discussed.