Removing HOOA Family Farm Exemption: Impact on Injury

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DESCRIPTION: (provided by applicant): This proposal addresses the first priority listed in the RF A: Develop and evaluate new or existing enhanced control technologies and is specifically focused on administrative controls in the form of public policy. Despite increased national efforts, the problem of childhood agricultural fatalities, injuries, and disability persists. Agricultural safety professionals and child safety advocates are beginning to consider public policy approaches. In the United States, one of the policy considerations is removing the family farm exemption from the Hazardous Occupations Order for Agriculture (HOOA). Before investing resources to initiate such a policy change, it would be helpful to assess its potential impact on the prevention of childhood agricultural injuries. The purpose of this proposed study, "Removing the HOOA Family Farm Exemption: Impact on Injury," is to systematically apply the HOOA to case descriptions of fatal and non-fatal injuries experienced by farm children in order to determine if the HOOA (if implemented and enforced) might have prevented the occurrence of these injuries. This proposed study will build upon our previous NIOSH grant in which we assembled a large case series (approximately 1000 cases) of traumatic childhood farm fatalities and injuries using existing surveillance data, coroner/medical examiner records, case investigation reports, and national survey data. The case series will be enhanced by additional injury cases from a national minority farmer's survey. The use of "real life" childhood farm injury cases will provide some evidence of the extent to which removal of the HOOA family m exemption might have reduced the occurrence of these injuries. It will also highlight ages, jobs and situations that would not be covered by removing the exemption.