Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115418

Jennifer M. Kmet¹, Andrew S. Knecht¹, Sato Ashida, PhD¹, J.R Wilkins III, BCE, DrPH¹, J. Mac Crawford, RN, PhD¹, and Kathleen M. Koechlin, RN, MPH, PhD². (1) School of Public Health, The Ohio State University, B-107 Starling-Loving Hall, 320 West 10th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1240, (614)293-8264, jkmet@sph.osu.edu, (2) Division of Prevention, Bureau of Infectious Disease Control, The Ohio Department of Health, 35 E. Chestnut St., Columbus, OH 43215, Afghanistan

In 2001, it has been estimated that there were approximately 22, 648 injuries on U.S. farms among children aged 20 or younger. Because there is little regulation of work performed by children who live and/or work on farms, it is important that parents assign chores appropriate to the child's age and development.

In 1999, the North American Guidelines for Children's Agricultural Tasks were published to help parents make good decisions in assigning farm chores to their children. These guidelines were developed using a consensus-development methodology since little empirical evidence was available. To address the need for evidence-based research, a NIOSH-funded cohort study titled ‘Empirical Derivation of Work Guidelines for Youth in Agriculture' was completed in 2001 with 407 pairs of farm parent and youth participants.

In this presentation, results from this study will be used to discuss variation in parental attitudes when they assign chores to youth. Along a 5-point Likert scale, parents reported on nineteen different factors they could take into account when making decisions about assigning chores. Variation in these factors will be considered with respect to several parental characteristics including parenting style, perception of child's abilities, history of injury, parent demographic characteristics and other putative factors such as size and nature of farm and youth age and gender. The results will help guide the development of effective, targeted interventions aimed at preventing youth agricultural injuries.

Learning Objectives: