Source
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, PhD Dissertation, 2006 Feb; :1-287
Abstract
Family-run agricultural operations are exempt from most federal labor and safety standards, leaving parents solely responsible for monitoring children's exposures to agricultural hazards and keeping them safe. Despite the parents' pivotal role, research on parental determinants of childhood agricultural injury is lacking. This study evaluated whether children's agricultural work practices increased the risk of childhood agricultural injury, parents' safety beliefs reduced the risk of agricultural injury and were associated with chore assignments, and whether child and parent covariates predicted injury, work practices, or safety beliefs. Analyses were based on nested case-control data, collected by the Regional Rural Injury Study-II (RRIS-II) surveillance effort in 1999 and 2001, using computer-assisted telephone interviews. Cases (n = 425) and controls (n = 1886) were persons younger than 20 years of age from Midwestern agricultural households. All injury events were selected as cases; controls were selected using incidence density sampling. Using multivariate logistic regression, increased risks of injury were observed for children who: performed any agricultural work (odds ratio [OR] = 3.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.6-5.6); performed 7-10 chores per month compared to one chore (2.2, 1.3-3.5); worked 11-30 or 31-40 hours per week compared to 1-10 hours (1.6, 1.2-2.1 and 22, 1.3-3.7, respectively); and, performed chores an average of two-three years younger than recommended compared to performing "age-appropriate" chores (2.6, 1.44.5). Decreased risks of injury were observed for: non-working children compared to children performing minimal/safe levels of agricultural work; "moderate" versus "very strict" parental monitoring (0.70, 0.54-0.97); children of parents whose beliefs about the importance of physical readiness were more conservative (0.90, 0.70-0.99); and for females (0.50, 0.40-0.8) and working aged children (7-16 years of age, 0.70, 0.50-0.90) of parents whose beliefs about the importance of cognitive readiness were more conservative. Parents' safety beliefs were not associated with chore assignments. This study is be first to use population-based case-control data to evaluate the risk of childhood agricultural injury associated with performing developmentally inappropriate chores and parental safety beliefs. Results suggest that the efficacy of age restrictions and parental safety beliefs for preventing the occurrence of childhood agricultural injuries warrants further evaluation.
Keywords
Age-factors; Age-groups; Agricultural-processes; Agricultural-workers; Agriculture; Analytical-processes; Behavior; Biological-effects; Children; Environmental-exposure; Environmental-factors; Environmental-hazards; Epidemiology; Exposure-assessment; Exposure-levels; Exposure-methods; Families; Farmers; Health-surveys; Herbicides; Injury-prevention; Mathematical-models; Medical-surveys; Occupational-exposure; Occupational-hazards; Occupational-safety-programs; Pesticides-and-agricultural-chemicals; Quantitative-analysis; Questionnaires; Risk-analysis; Risk-factors; Safety-education; Safety-measures; Safety-practices; Standards; Statistical-analysis; Surveillance-programs; Work-environment; Worker-health; Workers; Work-operations; Work-organization; Work-practices
