UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center at Davis
On-Line News
Issue Number 1997-03
Summer 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
1997-03-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
- 1997-03-01 Table of Contents
- 1997-03-02 Welcome and Introduction
- 1997-03-03 Agricultural Injuries Cost Hundreds
of Lives Annually
- 1997-03-04 Getting the Most From Ag Center
Programs
- 1997-03-05 Center Assists Rural Health Clinics
- 1997-03-06 Ag Labor Management on the Web
- 1997-03-07 Toll-Free Pesticide Information
Service Available
- 1997-03-08 UC IPM Team Honored
- 1997-03-09 NIOSH's Childhood Ag Initiative
1996-03-02 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@oem.ucdavis.edu (message forwarding address) and aghealthnews-request@oem.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:
To: aghealthnews-request@oem.ucdavis.edu Subject: Message: subscribe
(your name here)
1997-03-03 AGRICULTURAL INJURIES COST HUNDREDS
OF LIVES ANNUALLY
In a split second, the young man lost both his arms and very nearly
his life. Working around an unshielded power take-off (PTO) on the
family's tractor, he became caught in the whirring machinery, which
tore off his arms in an instant. He walked home, kicked open the door
and, using a pen held in his mouth, dialed 911. He then sat in the
bathtub so he wouldn't bleed on the carpet. The ambulance came and,
miraculously, surgeons reattached his arms.
"The entire news coverage of this incident dealt with the heroism
of this young man and the amazing efforts by surgeons to reattach
his arms," said Stephen McCurdy, professor of Epidemiology and Preventive
Medicine and research coordinator for the Center. "There was almost
no mention of the fact that this was a totally preventable accident.
If the PTO guard had been on the tractor, he wouldn't have lost
his arms." According to data from the National Safety Council, agriculture
has the dubious distinction of being No. 1 in injury-related deaths,
at 35 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
"There's a tremendous burden on society, affecting not only the
individual worker, who may have to contend with a chronic disability,
but also affecting his or her employer and others," explained McCurdy
during the Center's noon seminar in March focusing on agricultural
injuries. There are approximately 1,100 agricultural fatalities
annually in the United States that are generally associated with
machinery, animals or falls (about equally). Children also are affected:
up to approximately 300 fatalities and 27,000 non-fatal injuries
occur in persons younger than 19.
"Child labor on the farm is a reality, but dangerous machinery
such as the tractor was not designed to be operated by 10- or 12-year-olds.
Children generally are not big and strong enough to handle such
machinery safely, and they may lack good judgment and experience,"
said McCurdy.
In 1985, the government spent $181.68 per mining worker on safety;
30 cents per agricultural worker on safety; and an average of $4.30
per worker in all industries. As a result, mining fatalities have
been reduced considerably. But injuries in agriculture remain high.
After tourism, agriculture leads California in economic importance.
The 1992 U.S. Census of Agriculture determined that California had
about 77,000 farms, producing more than $17 billion in product sold,
but the farming industry remains relatively unregulated. Farms and
ranches occupy nearly one-third of California's 100 million acres.
Crops are harvested from 7.8 million acres of land, and California's
consumer horticulture and flower industry generates about $2 billion
in annual sales from just 1 percent of the cropland.
Between 600,000 and 1.1 million migrant and seasonal farmworkers
and family members live in California. The Center is focusing heavily
on injuries in this population, which constitutes the majority of
farm labor in the state. Center investigators are helping to reduce
eye injuries, amputations, fatalities, traumatic and cumulative
trauma injuries by designing safer and more ergonomically appropriate
farm equipment.
The Center's many programs aimed at reducing injuries are helping
to identify organizational practices affecting injury risk, increasing
awareness of work hazards, and developing safer equipment for farmworkers.
Current agricultural injury and ergonomics research projects include:
Although the high injury rate among agricultural populations is
frustrating, it is encouraging to realize that injuries are, by
their nature, preventable and worth preventing. When a teenager
is saved from loss of limbs, or a farmworker from disabling injury,
the benefits accrue to workers, family, and society at-large.
1997-03-04 GETTING THE MOST FROM AG CENTER PROGRAMS
by Rose Krebill-Prather
Evaluation of government-funded programs is essential as funding sources
become tighter. Grantors want to make sure that they are funding projects
that meet intended goals and make meaningful contributions to society.
Since 1994, Rose Krebill-Prather has served as a consultant for the
UC Statewide IPM program, designing and developing program evaluations
for various projects. In 1996, Rose joined the Center to assist its
investigators in developing effective proposals to obtain funding
and to help them achieve their projects' intended goals. Below is
an article written by Rose describing the evaluation process and current
Center activities she's involved in.
Why is there an increased interest in program evaluation at
our Center? The strengthening of our Center's evaluation core
this past year was in response to NIOSH's increased emphasis on
evaluation of intervention programs. In the 1995 External Review
of the NIOSH Safety and Health Program in Agriculture (the Kennedy
Report), the committee recommended that "NIOSH and the Centers need
to work together to develop an evaluation scheme for the various
component programs and projects initiated by the Centers and for
evaluating the Centers overall." Inour most recent funding cycle,
evaluation plans were developed for each of the Center's intervention
projects. Currently, those plans are being implemented. This increased
attention to evaluation renews an interest in some more basic questions
about evaluation.
What is evaluation?
Evaluation is a research process that aims to provide feedback to
intervention programs at various phases of the program, including
conceptualization, design, implementation and outcome assessment
phases. Evaluators most often rely on social science research procedures
for the collection and analysis of information (e.g., surveys, interviews,
focus groups and observation). Evaluations may be directed at one
or multiple program phases.
What are the main types of evaluation?
A program evaluation plan can involve one or more types of evaluation.
Each type of evaluation addresses different phases of intervention
programs:
What are some of our Center's current evaluation activities?
Two of the surveys that are currently under way highlight some of
the Center's evaluation activities. First, face-to-face interviews
are being conducted among Southeast Asian specialty crop growers
in Fresno and San Joaquin counties. The purpose of the survey is
to learn more about farming practices, perceptions of pesticide
use and safety, and use of various sources of information among
Southeast Asian growers.
This baseline information will be used to design culturally appropriate
educational programs on the safe use of pesticides for this target
population. A second survey involves a follow-up telephone survey
of participants in the 1996 "Train the Trainer Workshops." This
post-test survey is being used to assess the effectiveness of the
workshops on participant instructors who conducted pesticide safety
training for pesticide handlers and/or field workers after attending
the workshop. Program success will be measured in terms of instructor
knowledge of pesticide safety, number and types of training conducted,
and obstacles to providing training to workers.
The most recent development in the Center's evaluation activities
involves our participation in multi-site evaluation of the eight
regional NIOSH agricultural health and safety centers in the United
States. The initial aim of this multi-site evaluation is to provide
a composite description of activities across Centers. For example,
a compilation of research areas across the eight Centers is being
organized into a grid that utilizes the National Occupational Research
Agenda.
The multi-site evaluation is intended to facilitate collaborative
efforts such as replication and extension of various programs and
research, dis-semination of knowledge on health and safety issues
in agriculture, and to encourage sharing of resources.
1997-03-05 CENTER ASSISTS RURAL HEALTH CLINICS
by Jennifer Weber
UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center investigators will study
rural health clinics throughout the state this summer to evaluate
their needs in assessing and reporting pesticide exposure cases.
Rural clinics are now faced with more stringent guidelines for
pesticide exposure reporting, as well as penalties for failure to
report, as a result of a 1995 revision in Health and Safety Code
105200. The code states, in part, that any attending physician or
other health care provider who knows or has reasonable cause to
believe that a patient is suffering from pesticide poisoning or
any disease or condition caused by a pesticide is required to report
that fact to the local health officer by telephone within 24 hours
and by submitting a report written on forms provided by the Department
of Health within seven days. In addition, any physician or health
care provider who fails to comply with this reporting requirement
shall be liable for a civil penalty of $250.
This mandate has left many clinicians asking:
1.) What are the reasonable time periods to report the incident,
and how do I obtain the report forms?
2.) How can I be certain that my patient's symptoms were caused
by a pesticide exposure?
3.) If I report a pesticide exposure incident, are there any consequences
to my patient?
The answers to those questions are being developed by a team of
specialists: Patrick O'Connor-Marer, director of the Statewide Integrated
Pest Management Project's Pesticide Education Program (PEP); Jennifer
Weber, PEP program representative; and Rose Krebill-Prather, Center
evaluator. They will work closely with physicians, county agricultural
commissioners and health department officials to design a rural
health clinic outreach project that helps to answer these questions.
In 1992, during the initial phases of the project, Center investigators
provided pesticide-related health information to most of California's
rural health clinic personnel through workshops devoted to the recognition,
treatment and reporting of pesticide-related poisoning and illnesses.
Salvador Sandoval, M.D., a physician at the Golden Valley Health
Center in Merced, reported that many rural health clinics involved
in the project have experienced a high rate of employee turnover
since the project began. Therefore, training must be ongoing to
make new staff members aware of required procedures. To compensate
for this problem, center investigators will identify key clinic
personnel who can provide the necessary staff member training, using
PEP's train-the-trainer model.
"Throughout this project we will work with clinic staff members
to help them understand the methods and importance of reporting
pesticide-related injuries or illness" said O'Connor-Marer. "We
also will collaborate with local county agricultural commissioners,
growers and representatives from health departments to provide physicians
with a better understanding of the implications of reporting pesticide-related
illnesses."
O'Connor-Marer explained that the objective of this project is
to extend this information to all medical providers who have contact
with agricultural workers to assure that these workers are receiving
proper medical attention following possible exposures to pesticides.
He said, "Overall, our goal is to provide better care for agricultural
workers and to help them to obtain information about avoiding pesticide
exposure."
1997-03-06 AG LABOR MANAGEMENT ON THE WEB
Agricultural employers can now use their computers to draw from a
rich and continually expanding stock of labor management information
provided on the Internet by the University of California. The UC Agricultural
Personnel Management Program (APMP) has assembled a wealth of content
and structured links to material on topics such as employee recruitment
and selection, supervision, farm workplace safety, wages and incentive
pay, discipline, int erpersonal relations on the job and labor law.
Educational articles, legal and government references, teaching
tools, databases, research reports, newsletters, advice and other
resources from APMP staff are available through the Internet more
readily and broadly than ever. Of special interest to many farm
employers and agricultural service providers are frequently updated
links to government agency publications, databases and compliance
guides.
Slide sets and experiential teaching materials can be downloaded
by academics and other educators. Information in Spanish is available
to interested visitors. Web site guests can join AG-HRnet, an electronic
forum on agricultural human resource management, in which meetings
are announced, new information is presented, and practical challenges
are shared and discussed. Likewise, the WPS-Forum is an active discussion
network focusing on the federal worker protection standards and
related pesticide safety regulations.
Through the "Electronic Farm Call" page, farm employers and others
can contact any academic staff member of the APMP team: Farm Advisors
Gregory Billikopf in Modesto, Brian Linhardt in Oroville and Steve
Sutter in Fresno, and Extension Specialist Howard Rosenberg in Berkeley.
These web pages can all be accessed through two inter-connected
Internet locations: http://are.berkeley.edu/APMP
and http://www.cnr.Berkeley.edu/ucce50/7grisha.htm.
For more information, contact Gregory Encina Billikopf at 209/525-6654
or e-mail gebillikopf@ucdavis.edu.
1997-03-07 TOLL-FREE PESTICIDE INFORMATION SERVICE
AVAILABLE
A toll-free information service is now available to any caller in
the United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Sponsored cooperatively
by Oregon State University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
a National Pesticide Telecommunications Network (NPTN) provides objective,
science-based information about a wide variety of pesticide-related
subjects, including pesticide products, pesticide poisonings, toxicology
and environmental chemistry.
NPTN, which accepts questions from the public and professionals,
is staffed by highly qualified and trained pesticide specialists
who have the toxicology and environmental chemistry training needed
to provide knowledgeable answers to questions about pesticides.
NPTN uses a variety of information sources such as EPA documents,
USDA Cooperative Extension publications, scientific literature and
a pesticide product database. Information is available without cost
over the phone, and non-copyrighted materials can be mailed or faxed
for a nominal fee. Information is also available at http://ace.orst.edu/info/nptn/
on the worldwide web. For more information, call 800/858-7378; fax:
541/737-0761; or write nptn@ace.orst.edu via e-mail.
1997-03-08 UC IPM TEAM HONORED
There are times when pesticides are needed for managing crop pests.
When pesticides are used, environmental and human health risks can
be reduced if workers are properly trained. The Pesticide Education
Program, through its workshops offered in Spanish and English, reaches
employers and workers throughout the state with important pesticide
safety information and provides personal protective handlers and fieldworkers
with skills and knowledge needed to avoid pesticide-related problems.
Much of the work of the Pesticide Education Program involves developing
and testing new and innovative materials and training programs that
can bridge the cultural, language and educational barriers found
in California's diverse agricultural workforce.
The UC IPM Pesticide Education Program team, under the direction
of Center Outreach Coordinator Patrick O'Connor-Marer, received
the Seventh Annual Affirmative Action and Diversity Department Achievement
Award at a luncheon ceremony in January on the UC Davis campus.
O'Connor-Marer, along with program representatives Melanie Zavala
and Jennifer Weber, and program assistant Gale Pérez, were
acknowledged for their leadership and significant contributions
to affirmative action principles. The award recognizes their development
of the most comprehensive program in the United States for training
pesticide applicators, pesticide handlers and farmworkers in pesticide
safety.
"These individuals have developed innovative mechanisms to provide
safety education to literally hundreds of thousands of individuals,
mostly in Spanish and English but also in Punjabi, Hmong, Cambodian
and Lao, said Frank G. Zalom, director of the Statewide IPM Project.
"Their efforts reflect the diversity of California's agricultural
worker community. It also shows what can be done to bring the university
to the people of California, especially to groups that would likely
not be exposed to most other UC efforts."
More information on the University of California Statewide Integrated
Pest Management Project, including a schedule of "Train the Trainers"
workshops, can be found on the Internet at www.ipm.ucdavis.edu;
or call 916/752-8350.
1997-03-09 CHILDHOOD AG INITIATIVE
by Greg Kuhlman
NIOSH recently received funding from Congress for a national initiative
to protect the safety and health of children on farms. This initiative
will build on previous NIOSH research and on the recommendations in
a National Action Plan for childhood agricultural safety and health.
This plan was released in April of 1996 by the National Committee
for Childhood Agricultural Injury Prevention, a broad-based coalition
of researchers, farmers, agricultural groups, safety and health
professionals, and government officials. This National Action Plan
calls for leadership, surveillance, research, education, and public
policy to protect children in agriculture. The plan specifically
identifies NIOSH to serve as the lead federal agency in implementing
this action plan.
Through the efforts of this group, NIOSH received a Congressional
appropriation of 5 million in 1997. The majority of these funds
will be distributed to the extramural research community through
competitive research grants and cooperative agreements. To announce
NIOSH's new role as the lead federal agency for protecting the safety
and health of young people on farms, a town meeting was held in
Marshfield, Wis. in April of 1997.
Among the goals of this event was solicitation of suggestions and
participation by the farming community in designing and carrying
out this national safety and health effort. The meeting went very
well and provided compelling testimony from parents, farm families
and others about the importance of this new NIOSH initiative.
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