Key Staff: Christine Mason, Giulia Earle-Richardson

Funding Source(s): Supported by The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Contract # U07/CCU208020-08

Status: Completed Research Project

Project Details

Background: Children living or working on New York farms face unique hazards and experience on-farm injuries related to these. The New York Community Partners for Healthy Farming (CPHF) surveillance provides a unique source of information for analyses of risk factors – particularly age – for these events.

Methods: Agricultural injuries recorded by the state’s agricultural nurse surveillance (CPHF) program over a six-year period were analyzed. Injuries were classified by type, severity and possible contributing factors, including whether the age of the victim was below the “job appropriate age limits” designated by the investigators using materials from the North American Guidelines for Children’s Agricultural Tasks (Guidelines).

Results: Of 164 recorded injuries to persons aged 1 – 18 years, 29 were fatalities, 18 were disabling, and 55% occurred while working. Leading injury types were tractor run-over (12) and overturns (11). Of those injured while working, 34% were under the “job appropriate age limits”. Tasks of loading hay (square bales)(100%, 3), field work with trailed implements (100%, 3), and feeding calves (100%, 2) most frequently involved very young victims. Grouped by injury source, injuries involving non-powered wagons had the highest frequency of under-age victims (82%, 9).

Conclusion: The frequency of problems with job appropriate ages suggests that some children on NY farms may be developmentally inappropriate for the tasks to which they are being assigned. The Guidelines is a needed tool for child agricultural injury in New York.