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L. Milroy and D.L. Morgan
NIOSH Education and Information Division
Nebraska's
economy revolves around agriculture. In 1991, over 90% of
the state -- some 47.1 million acres -- were farm and ranchland.
Nebraska, during this time, was home to 56,000 farms and ranches
(Nebraska Blue Book 92-93). One-third of the state's population
lived in rural areas, according to the 1990 census. These
figures are the most current published data. Nebraska's economy
is related directly or indirectly to agriculture, so the need
for current injury data is vital for those developing intervention
strategies to control the economic impact of lost time injuries.
Mechanisms
of farm and ranch occupational injuries are not well quantified.
Most recent studies were retrospective interviews of a random
sample of the rural population. The Cooperative Extension
Service of the University of Nebraska and the Nebraska Department
of Health investigated the feasibility of obtaining prospective
data by developing a survey instrument, and requesting Emergency
Room staff to complete an instrument on each Emergency Room
admission resulting from agricultural injury.
Only
Acute Care hospitals were contacted for participation in the
study. Out of ninety-two (92) Acute Care hospitals in Nebraska,
almost half, forty-six (46), agreed to participate in the
study with twenty-nine (29) of the hospitals sending back
data. The twenty-nine (29) hospitals were scattered across
the state. Only the northern part of the state was under-represented.
Five (5) of the participating hospitals were located in urban
areas. All five urban hospitals received the injured as transfer
patients from rural hospitals.
The
study shows that three mechanisms of injury are highly over-represented
across all age groups. The mechanisms (animals, machinery
and tractors) change positions in the different age categories
but always stay in the top three. Also, hospital costs were
highly inflated for each age group due to the severity of
injuries and the distance from a qualified trauma center.
The cost per injury for children sixteen and under was three
times that for adults. Data from each hospital revealed a
county travel pattern that, in many cases, resulted in patients
traveling out of the county of injury to reach treatment.
Categories were added as data was compiled because the "Other"
category was far too immense and varied. "Hand Tools" was
a category that was added as well as "Falls." These two categories
reduced the "Other" category to ten cases.
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and Reproduction Information: Information in NASD does not represent
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NASD Review: 04/2002
This
research abstract was extracted from a portion of the proceedings
of "Agricultural Safety and Health: Detection, Prevention and
Intervention," a conference presented by the Ohio State University
and the Ohio Department of Health, sponsored by the Centers
for Disease Control/National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health.
The
authors noted above are from: Both at the University of Nebraska,
Lincoln, NE.
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