Needs assessment survey for enhancing United States child agricultural injury prevention capacity: Brief report

The dissemination of childhood agricultural safety and health information and resources through organizations that farmers trust enhances implementation and the Socio-Ecological Model can help identify these organizations. However, to become effective partners in improving agricultural health and safety, organizations need to build capacity in child agricultural safety and health, thus, more information is needed about these organizations' current practices, needs, and capacity for leadership, policy makers, and knowledge mobilization. An online survey was administered to organization leaders with an interest in child agricultural injury prevention, chosen through agricultural health and safety organization membership lists. Invitations to participate in the online survey were mailed to 95 organization leaders with three weekly reminders, resulting in participation from 50 organization leaders (53% response rate). Respondents indicated a high level of awareness of child agricultural injuries, yet few were actively engaged in injury prevention. When asked about "needs" for building capacity in injury prevention, over half (56%) identified a need for more promotion and dissemination of safety resources and strategies, including ATV safety, no extra riders on equipment, and keeping young children out of the worksite. The only topic that more than half of the organizations (54%) identified as "needing more information" was childhood agricultural injury surveillance. This assessment yielded valuable details for identifying opportunities, priorities, and topics for future collaborations and capacity building. Findings help inform national and international planning committees' work, such as the next iteration of a US National Action Plan for Childhood Agricultural Injury Prevention, scheduled for release in 2024.

Labor Shortage Poses Safety Challenges for Growing Agritourism Industry

Trends: Agritourism is increasingly popular, generating the need for additional employees. Given the labor shortages in the U.S., this motivates producers on agritourism operators to develop strategies to address the labor shortages, some of which could impact worker safety. Research and current initiatives: Contributing factors to labor shortages in agriculture include the aging workforce, declining rural populations, the stressful nature of agricultural work, long hours and less labor intensive options. Foreign labor has been impacted by immigration policy changes, H2A program inefficiencies and the recent pandemic. Staffing agritourism operations is further complicated by the need for seasonal employees and staff with varying skill sets, such as hospitality, food service, and retail; industries with critical labor shortages. Some strategies agritourism operators employ to address staff shortages (e.g. employees work longer hours, hiring younger staff) may impact safety. Collaborations between producers and safety professionals could help develop strategies to address labor shortages while ensuring worker safety. Gaps in knowledge, regulation and practice: More information is needed on employees on agritourism operations including the number of employees, hours worked, tasks performed, safety training provided, impact of customers in worksites, injuries incurred, current strategies employed to address the labor shortages, and motivators for staff to participate in safety training. Recommendations for the future: Research is needed to address the gaps in knowledge previously mentioned, and the information gathered used to develop recommendations, safety strategies and resources to help agritourism operators employ effective recruitment and retention strategies that also help establish a safe working environment.

Safety guidelines for youth agricultural work in the United States: A description of the development and updating process

To reduce the prevalence of youth injuries and fatalities in agricultural settings, safety professionals considered developing a guideline-focused intervention for how and when youth should conduct farm chores. In 1996, the process to create guidelines started, which then expanded to include professionals from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. This team used a consensus driven approach to develop the guidelines and launch the North American Guidelines for Children's Agricultural Tasks. By 2015, research related to the published guidelines indicated a need to incorporate new empirical evidence and develop dissemination plans based on new technologies. The process for updating the guidelines was supported by a 16-person steering committee and used content experts and technical advisors. The process yielded updated and new guidelines, now called Agricultural Youth Work Guidelines. This report responds to request for further details on the development and update of the guidelines and describes the genesis of the guidelines as an intervention, the process for creating guidelines, recognition of the need to update guidelines based on research, and the process for updating guidelines to assist in others engaged in similar types of interventions.

The COVID-19 Impact on Childcare in Agricultural Populations

The corona virus pandemic pulled back the curtain on rural America's already fragile childcare system and shed light on the critical role that quality, affordable, accessible childcare plays in the lives of workers and families, as well as in the success of agricultural businesses. This commentary aims to describe how existing childcare problems were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially impacting both the health and economics of farm households and farmworker families. For solutions to be successful, efforts will need to be collaborative, with federal interventions spurred on by childcare stakeholders. Successful collaborations will result in a better childcare system that nurtures children while their parents contribute to our nation's production of agricultural products.

Redesigning a Sentinel Surveillance System for Collecting and Disseminating Near Real-Time Agricultural Injury Reports: System Usability Study

Background

Injury data and reports provide valuable information for both public and private organizations to guide programming, policy, and prevention, but in the increasingly complex and dangerous industry of US agriculture, the injury surveillance needed to produce this data is lacking. To address the gap, AgInjuryNews was established in 2015. The system includes fatal and nonfatal injury cases derived from publicly available reports, including occupational and nonoccupational injuries, occurring in the agricultural, forestry, and fishing (AFF) industry.

Objective

The study aimed to develop a stakeholder-engaged redesign of the interactive, up-to-date, and publicly available dataset of US AFF injury and fatality reports.

Methods

Instructor-led heuristic evaluations within a 15-student undergraduate course, data from 8 student participants of laboratory-based usability testing and 2016 and 2017 AgInjuryNews-registered user surveys, coupled with input from the National Steering Committee informed the development priorities for 2018. An interdisciplinary team employed an agile methodology of 2-week sprints developing in ASP.NET and Structured Query Language to deliver an intuitive frontend and a flexible, yet structured, backend, including a case report input form for capturing more than 50 data points on each injury report.

Results

AgInjuryNews produced 17,714 page views from 43 countries in 2018 captured via Google Analytics, whereas 623 injury reports were coded and loaded, totaling more than 31,000 data points. Newly designed features include customizable email alerts, an interactive map, and expanded search and filter options. User groups such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Agricultural Safety and Health Council of America have endorsed the system within their networks. News media have cited or referenced the system in national outlets such as the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post.

Conclusions

The new system’s features, functions, and improved data granularity have sparked innovative lines of research and increased collaborative interest domestically and abroad. It is anticipated that this nontraditional sentinel surveillance system and its dataset will continue to serve many purposes for public and private agricultural safety and health stakeholders in the years to come. 

Establishing a publicly available national database of US news articles reporting agriculture-related injuries and fatalities

BACKGROUND

The AgInjuryNews system and dataset are a news report repository and information source for agricultural safety professionals, policymakers, journalists, and law enforcement officials.

METHODS

AgInjuryNews was designed as a primary storage and retrieval system that allows users to: identify agricultural injury/fatality events; identify injury agents and emerging issues; provide safety messages for media in anticipation of trends; and raise awareness and knowledge of agricultural injuries and prevention strategies. Data are primarily collected through Google Alerts and a digital media subscription service. Articles are screened, reviewed, coded, and entered into the system.

RESULTS

As of January 1, 2018, the system contained 3028 unique incidents. Of those, 650 involved youth, and 1807 were fatalities. The system also had registered 329 users from 39 countries.

CONCLUSIONS

AgInjuryNews combines injury reports into one dataset and may be the most current and comprehensive publicly available collection of news reports on agricultural injuries and deaths.