UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center at Davis
On-Line News
Issue Number 1997-01
Winter 1997
Published by the UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center at
Davis, University of California, Davis, Marc Schenker, M.D., M.P.H.,
Director, Jeff March, Editor
1997-01-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
- 1997-01-01 Table of Contents
- 1997-01-02 Welcome and Introduction
- 1997-01-03 Diver Safety Project Aims to Reduce
Number of Child Deaths
- 1997-01-04 WPS Unknown to Farmworkers
- 1997-01-05 TB Among Farmworkers
- 1997-01-06 Share Knowledge on the Aghealth
List Server
- 1997-01-07 Practicing Safety: A Progress
Report of Safety Practices
- 1997-01-08 Voices of Farmers: Effects of
Regulation
1996-04-02 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center at Davis
On-Line News.
On-Line News is a synopsis of news items covered by the Center's
quarterly newsletter. The Center has two electronic list servers
that allow automatic forwarding of e-mail to a list of subscribers.
One server is a forum for announcements and discussion of agricultural
health and safety issues and the other is a vehicle for the automatic
distribution of the Center's quarterly newsletter.
The e-mail addresses for the forum is: aghealth@epm.ucdavis.edu
(message forwarding address) and aghealth-request@epm.ucdavis.edu
(subscriber request address). The addresses for the newsletter are:
aghealthnews@epm.ucdavis.edu (message forwarding address) and aghealthnews-request@epm.ucdavis.edu
(subscriber request address).
To subscribe to a list, send an e-mail message to the request address
with no subject and a one line message giving the option subscribe
and your name. For example, to subscribe to the forum for announcements
and general agricultural health and safety issues, you would send
the following: To: aghealth-request@epm.ucdavis.edu Subject: Message:
subscribe (your name here)
By return e-mail you will receive confirmation of your request
and more information about using the list server request functions.
To subscribe to the On-line News, your request would look like:
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(your name here)
1997-01-03 DRIVER SAFETY PROJECT AIMS TO REDUCE
NUMBER OF CHILD DEATHS
by Cynthia Bates and Martha Stiles
An unrestrained child involved in a 30-mile-an-hour car crash is endangered
as much as a child thrown from a 30-story building, according to a
California Highway Patrol (CHP) spokesperson,who cites as evidence
numerous tragic examples:
These incidents were all preventable. Car crashes are the leading
cause of death in children. Nationwide some 50,000 injuries are
annually inflicted on children riding unrestrained in cars. In Sacramento
more than 40 deaths occurred in one year because child safety seats
were not used or were not used properly. The ¡Maneje Seguro!
driver safety project, based on La Loteria del Manejo Seguro (the
Driver Safety Game), was developed by Center investigators to reduce
these fatality and injury rates within farmworker families.
Program staff are working with the CHP, migrant housing centers,
the state Office of Traffic Safety and national child injury organizations
in developing written and visual child safety seat educational tools.
Current California law requires that all children under 4 years
or 40 pounds use federally approved child safety seats. Unfortunately,
obtaining and installing seats is not the simple answer. According
to SafetyBeltSafe, Inc., up to 70 percent of the child safety seats
are installed improperly, which, in an accident, can have the same
dire impact as having no seat.
Studies show that the problem lies in poorly written and understood
instructions and the lack of uniformity in safety seat and safety
belt designs. Engineering may solve the problem in the future, but
for now community education efforts will focus on assisting the
thousands of safety seat users who may be unaware of the rules of
proper installation. No current effort has targeted the farmworker
population on the issue of child safety seats, and no barriers exist
for farmworker families. Many may not be aware of the law, especially
if they migrate from Mexico where laws are different. These families
have low literacy levels, little acculturation and virtually no
experience with child safety seats. Child safety seats may be perceived
as difficult and expensive.
The collaborative efforts of ¡Maneje Seguro! addresses
the importance of proper child safety seat use among the low-literate,
Hispanic farmworker population in California. Many people do not
realize that proper choice among several types of car seats depends
on the age and weight of the child. The highly illustrated bilingual
materials describe safe restraint of children and pregnant women,
including information on infant seats, convertible seats, booster
seats and installation. Color photographs of volunteers from the
target audience illustrate each point.
Patricia Mora, public affairs officer for the CHP, says the bilingual
¡Maneje Seguro! educational material should be disseminated
to labor camps, clinics and ESL classes by late summer this year.
1997-01-04 WPS UNKNOWN TO FARMWORKERS
by Don Villarejo and Celia Prado, California Institute for Rural
Studies
The Worker Protection Standard (WPS) of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) was introduced in 1992 and, after a period of partial
implementation, the remaining regulations were promulgated in 1996.
Implementation in California began in January 1997 through the California
Department of Pesticide Regulation, a branch of Cal-EPA. WPS is the
first comprehensive effort by a federal agency to address occupational
health and safety risks associated with field worker exposure to agricultural
chemicals.
Prior to WPS, comprehensive farmworker protection regulations regarding
pesticide safety had been adopted in only a few states, most notably
in California where significant rules have been in place for more
than a quarter century. Nevertheless, even in those states, the
new regulations mandate additional activities and safeguards designed
to protect farmworkers from injury or illness caused by occupational
pesticide exposures. WPS requires safety training for all workers
who will enter crop fields where certain materials have been applied
during the current crop year, as well as explicitly granting certain
rights to workers, including a basic "right-to-know."
A study, funded by the Center, was conducted to determine whether
farmworkers in California are aware of the new regulations, whether
and how they have received the required training, and whether they
believe they are at risk of pesticide illness in their workplace.
Nearly 500 interviews were conducted in Spanish by Celia Prado and
Luis Magaña in two California counties last summer. A total
of 115 interviews were conducted at 17 sites in Yolo County (Sacramento
Valley), including two farm labor camps administered by public agencies.
An additional 373 interviews were conducted at nearly two dozen
sites in San Joaquin County (San Joaquin Valley), including three
public farm labor camps.
Fewer than one in five workers had ever heard of the WPS or of
the U.S. EPA. Most of those who claimed to know something about
either could not provide anything substantive upon closer questioning.
Residents of farm labor camps administered by public agencies were
the most likely to have received some training (66 percent), but
in most cases it was provided by nonprofit agencies, not their employer.
Only a relatively few farmworkers living at private camps had received
training. Overall, only about 16 percent of farmworkers said that
they had received on-the-job pesticide safety training. Clearly,
these results suggest that the news about WPS has not yet reached
most farmworkers in California.
1997-01-05 TB AMONG FARMWORKERS
by Stephen McCurdy, M.D., M.P.H.
Tuberculosis (TB) has been a scourge of the human race since antiquity.
Even though TB is a preventable and curable disease, worldwide death
and suffering from its effects continue in the modern era. The cycle
of infection typically begins when an individual ill with tuberculosis
coughs up microscopic droplets laden with Mycobacterium tuberculosis,
the causative bacterium. When inhaled by uninfected persons, the TB
bacterium reproduces in the lungs (primary infection site) and seeds
the blood stream.
Although the majority of infected individuals have competent immune
systems and never develop active tuberculosis disease, a minority
(5-10 percent over a lifetime) will be unable to hold the infection
in check and will develop active tuberculosis disease. Persons at
particular risk for developing active tuberculosis disease after
initial infection include those with underlying illnesses such as
malnutrition, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease and prolonged steroid
use. Persons developing active tuberculosis disease usually manifest
fever, weight loss, and a productive cough. Caucasians have the
lowest rates of TB (4 percent), followed by Hispanics (20-36 percent)
and African Americans (29-46 percent). Haitian and Caribbean farmworkers
are at greatest risk, ranging from 55 to 83 percent.
In the summer of 1995, Center investigators, in partnership with
representatives from the Yolo County Department of Public Health,
conducted several health "ferias" (fairs) at two local migrant housing
centers. The purpose of the ferias was to provide tuberculosis screening
and treatment services to the resident migrant farmworkers. Participants
completed a health questionnaire and tuberculin skin test to determine
tuberculosis infection status, and follow-up chest radiography and
medication was prescribed as necessary. All services were provided
at no cost to participants. Desiree Arretz and Elva Miranda, resident
doctors in the UC Davis Department of Internal Medicine and native
Spanish speakers, provided important leadership for the project.
More than 470 individuals participated in the program. Among participants,
the overall prevalence for tuberculin skin-test reactivity was approximately
17 percent. The importance of this program was evidenced in a Centers
for Disease Control (CDC) survey addressing occupational and residential
characteristics of tuberculosis cases from 1985 to 1989. That study
indicated that farmworkers accounted for 5 percent of all employed
cases.
A study of 2,206 pulmonary tuberculosis deaths occurring between
1979 and 1990 from the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance
data base shows that the chances of farmworkers contracting TB is
approximately double that of other employed adults. These studies
may underestimate the true risk for farmworkers if foreign-born
workers tend to return to their home country when ill, thus escaping
detection in the United States. The CDC Advisory Committee on the
Elimination of Tuberculosis has recommended that the highest priority
be given to detection and diagnosis of persons with symptoms of
active TB.
Education of the patient and family is a critical part of any treatment
plan. Many patients with positive skin tests are frightened that
they are a danger to family members or children. Health care providers
must emphasize to their patients that a positive skin test means
only that they have been infected at some time in the past, and
that they are not infectious as long as they do not develop active
tuberculosis. Financial support for this project was provided by
the California Wellness Foundation and the Yolo County Department
of Public Health.
1997-01-06 SHARE KNOWLEDGE ON THE AGHEALTH LIST
SERVER
Although the Worldwide Web has taken a leading role on the Internet
stage, a fine supporting cast of other communication tools delivers
a solid performance. Among those ancillary services are list servers
which, though not as glamorous as the web, do a wonderful job of expediting
communication between people.
A list server uses e-mail technology to broadcast topical messages
to subscribers, each of whom may participate by posting their own
messages. List servers, which typically focus on a particular subject,
such as agricultural health and safety, allow participants to collaborate
regardless of the distance between them.
List servers can offer informative, useful often silly and sometimes
rather repugnant information. In order to have an active and informative
list server, it must be "open" to subscribers and to anyone wishing
to share information about the particular topic it was created to
address. "Open" (as opposed to "closed") list servers generate a
greater variety of information, opinions and character, but are
also vulnerable to an occasional sales pitch or offensive message.
"One of the most interesting e-mail messages I received was from
someone requesting information on California law regarding bringing
a pet African pygmy hedgehog into California," said Marti Childs,
former Center editor and manager of the aghealth list server. "I
guess they thought that was in the realm of ag health and safety,
but I referred them to the UC California Veterinary Diagnostic Lab."
Subscribers must understand that the information posted to the
list server may not always be of interest to them. That's why giving
a good but brief description in the "Subject" line is extremely
important when posting messages. Among its many electronic communications,
the UC Agricultural Health and Safety Center has a list server called
"aghealth." It is open to anyone interested in agricultural health
and safety, and we welcome and encourage everyone involved in ag
health and safety to participate by posting to it. Some appropriate
topics for posting on the aghealth list server include:
To subscribe to aghealth, send an e-mail message to:
aghealth-request@epm.ucdavis.edu
Make sure the "Subject" is blank and, in the body of the message,
type the word "subscribe" and your name. An example using the e-mail
program Eudora would appear as follows:
TO: aghealth-request@epm.ucdavis.edu
FROM: adams@calweb.com
Subject:
Cc:
Bcc:
Attachments:
-----------------------------------------------------
subscribe Mary Adams
By return e-mail you will receive confirmation of your request
and more information about using the list server. To post a message
to aghealth, simply send your e-mail message to aghealth@epm.ucdavis.edu.
Archives of aghealth postings for the past year can be found on
the Center's home page at
www-epm.ucdavis.edu/agcenter
To put your news in the spotlight, subscribe to aghealth today.
1997-01-07 PRACTICING SAFETY: A PROGRESS REPORT
OF SAFETY PRACTICES
In 1995, State Compensation Insurance Fund and the California Farm
Bureau Federation presented 680 agricultural enterprises in California
with awards for their excellent safety records during the previous
year. Award winners represented the top 5 percent of a select group
of members of these organizations maintaining good safety records.
What was it that these farms, ranches, nurseries and agricultural
services did right? What can other agricultural operations learn from
their practices?
Center investigator James Grieshop of the UC Davis Department of
Human and Community Development is seeking the answers to these
questions by asking awardees about their procedures. In his talk,
"Practicing Safety: A Progress Report on a Statewide Study of Safety
Practices in California Agriculture" at the Center's noon seminar
in January, Grieshop presented some preliminary findings. In October,
Grieshop and colleagues, UC Davis graduate students Daniel Carroll
and Theresa Lins, and research associate Martha Stiles, sent surveys
to the 680 "best practices" award recipients focusing on their enterprises'
specific safety practices, as well as on components of their current
safety programs. A total of 134 companies responded (about 20 percent)-fewer
than Grieshop said he had anticipated.
"We're using the social marketing paradigm to understand the market
with respect to health and safety," said Grieshop. "For example,
we're asking about the company's health and safety attitudes, practices,
values and belief systems in the areas of health and safety. We're
using those and many other factors in designing and testing intervention
programs."
Center investigators determined that roughly 50 percent of respondents
have either attended college or have a college degree, and that
the average age of survey respondents is 55. Grieshop was pleased
by the significant number of responses from medium- to large-size
farms. Investigators are also interested in studying the composition
of the workforce (e.g., permanent, seasonal and/or contract labor).
The highest percentage (90 percent) of the respondents claimed a
permanent workforce, roughly two-thirds said they hired seasonal
workers, and 33 percent use farm labor contractors.
"The important thing about these statistics is that they allow
us to do some segmenting to conduct more in-depth interviews with
some very specific questions targeting the types of workers a company
employs and probing how the company organizes its safety programs,"
said Grieshop. When asked how each company viewed the effectiveness
of its safety program, more than 60 percent said their safety program
was "very effective," while 39 percent claimed their company's program
to be "somewhat effective."
The researchers are now preparing to use this information to determine
the distinctions between practices of these enterprises and those
with poorer safety records. They plan to conduct more in-depth surveys
of the components of these companies, including their commitment
to safety, commitment to workers, and individual safety practices.
"How are these operations different than other operations?" asked
Grieshop. "We want to learn from them and promote these `best practices'
to others."
1997-01-08 VOICES OF FARMERS: EFFECTS OF REGULATIONS
Farmers' views on ag regulations are recorded in a 150-page publication,
"Voices of California Farmers: Effects of Regulations." In telephone
interviews conducted during the summer of 1995, 263 farmers shared
their opinions and perceptions about regulations in general, as well
as how specific regulatory require-ments have affected them and how
they have adapted to the various requirements.
Generally, the growers surveyed asked to be regulated by a system
that is less complex, more goal-oriented and incentive- rather than
threat-based. They wanted regula-tors to take a "common sense" approach
to enforcement
You can obtain a copy of "Voices of California Farmers" for $15
by calling the Ag Issues Center at (916) 752-2320.
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