Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety & Health Center

This two-year exploratory project investigated a probable cause of Yakima County’s high rates of diarrheal illness – bacterial pathogens from livestock, taken home or in well water. It is hypothesized that occupational and environmental exposure pathways from livestock operations pose a significant risk of exposure to zoonotic bacterial contamination for farmworkers and their families. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of currently available methods for recovery of example bacteria from various surfaces. These methods are available to exposure science researchers. Additionally this study examines the roles of organism die-off and the experimental design of validation studies in the reported efficacy for surface sampling methods.

The extent and severity of agricultural health and safety hazards are largely unknown in the Pacific Northwest region. This project was designed to engage various constituencies familiar with agricultural health and safety throughout Region X. This process aimed to look broadly and long-term at the issues of farming, fishing, and forestry occupational safety and health in our regions, including technical, social, and economic dimensions involve a diverse group of stakeholders in identifying issues that can be addressed by occupational safety and health research; establish a priority list, or agenda, of occupational safety and health research topics relevant to Northwest farming, fishing, and forestry; and provide a continuing forum for discussion of key health and safety issues for the region.



Publication List

• Occupational Research Agenda for Northwest Forestlands
• Occupational Research Agenda for Northwest Farming

Direct assessment of the proportion of teenagers working in agriculture and the percent injured is sparsely reported in the literature and has not been performed in the Northwest United States. This project estimated the proportion of teenage children who work for pay in agriculturally related jobs in a rural town in Washington's Yakima Valley. Secondary goals were to estimate the injury rate among the teenage workers in the sample, to identify the patterns of work in relationship to school, and to characterize the treatment and outcome of these work related injuries. A random digit dialing survey targeted to a rural town composed of non-migratory agriculture workers of Mexican descent was employed to obtain these estimates.

This project documented occupational injuries and illnesses and related medical treatment among immigrant, Spanish-speaking forest workers in southern Oregon. In addition the project informed the development of a pilot job health and safety promotora program for these workers that The Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters-Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California, Berkeley- Lomakatsi Restoration Project partnership will be initiating with separate funding.

Researchers evaluated a Washington State Department of Labor and Industries’ accident prevention program implemented by their Yakima regional office in Kittitas, Grant, and Adams counties. The three-year injury prevention program aimed to reduce the frequency and cost of claims that are related to falls from ladders in the orchard and to eye injuries. Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with farm workers who were injured on the job following a fall from a ladder and who filed a claim prior to the L&I implementation of the prevention program. Information was collected on the circumstances of the injury, prior training, knowledge of and barriers to the use of preventive practices, and the injured worker’s perception of what could have been done to prevent the accident and related injury. Investigators then conducted field assessments of the level of program implementation and analyzed pre- and post-program claims data among intervention and non-intervention growers to determine the degree of program effectiveness.