Children who live and work on New York farms face unique safety hazards, including tractors, animals and machinery. The agricultural community has been sensitized to this risk from well-publicized farm tragedies involving farm children in the Midwest, but there is little documentation of the nature and extent of farm injuries to New York children. The Community Partners for Healthy Farming program is a network of agricultural health nurses throughout the state who provide assistance to farmers and their families when injuries and fatalities occur. From their records data has been collected on child farm injuries and fatalities in New York over the last seven years. Of the 164 recorded agricultural injuries 27 were fatalities and 18 were disabling injuries. Fifty-five percent of the children were injured while working. The most common cause of serious injury was tractor runovers (12), with tractor overturns (11) following in frequency. In addition, using the newly published North American Guidelines for Agricultural Tasks (NAGCAT), 34% of those injured while working were found to be under the recommended age for that task. The most commonly reported farm task was working with large animals (14%) then driving farm tractor (11%). Implications of these findings for prevention programs, NAGCAT and future research will be discussed.
Learning Objectives: 1. Participants will describe the child agricultural surveillance system for NY 2. Participants will describe the pattern of child agricultural injury in NY 3. Participants will explain the relationship between work injuries observed in NY among farm children and how the farm task the children were doing rate on the National Children's Agricultural Safety Center's North American Guidelines for Children's Agricultural Tasks (NAGCAT) 4. Participants will be able to define the NAGCAT, how it is used, and why it is needed 5. Participants will be able to name the two most common causes of serious farm injury and death to children on NY farms
Keywords: Agricultural Work Safety, Children and Adolescents
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: National Children's Agricultural Safety and Health in Marshfield, WI
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.