G.L.
Mitchell, L.A.
Jones, J.R.
Wilkins III, J.M.
Crawford and T.L.
Bean
NIOSH Education and Information Division
In the
on-going Ohio FFHHS, demographic and exposure information
was obtained from 2,571 cash grain farms. From this information,
descriptive data concerning the profile of cash grain farm
families in Ohio was generated and compared with data for
the United States. Demographic data collected on each person
working on the farm included gender, year of birth, relationship
to Principal Operator (PO), usual residence (on or off the
farm), work frequency (regularly, occasionally, or never),
and pay status (paid or unpaid). These data were not collected
for seasonal, migrant, or occasional workers.
Farm
families in this study averaged 3.5 people per farm, with
the number of people per farm for each county ranging from
1.75 to 7. Nine percent of the families consisted of only
one person, 29.1% consisted of two people, 20.3% consisted
of three people, and 41.7% of the farms reported 4 or more
people. The percentage of farm families with 4 or more members
is higher than those reported for the farm population of the
U.S. Of the farms with two or more people, 51.9% included
a married couple with at least one child, 37.7% included a
married couple but no children, 9.4% included a male head
of household, and 1.0% indicated a female head of household.
Fifty-five
percent of the families (2 or more people) included at least
one child. Thirty-nine percent of these families had at least
one child less than 18 years of age, 12% had at least one
child under 6 years of age, and 7.1% had at least one child
3 years of age. These percentages are consistent with those
reported for all farm families in the U.S.
From
the overall sample, data were collected on 8,941 people that
lived and/or worked on the farm. The average age for all people
on the farm was 42 years with a range of <1 to 92 years. Over
60% were male. Twenty-nine percent of the sample were POs,
23.9% were the spouse of the PO, 27.7% were children of the
PO, 12.9% were some other relative of the PO, and the remainder
were hired workers unrelated to the PO. More than two-thirds
of the sample lived on a farm and 48.3% worked regularly on
the farm. Interestingly, only 29% of the sample report that
they are paid to work on the farm.
Based
upon demographic data reflecting the U.S. farm population,
it would appear that survey respondents in the Ohio FFHHS
are from larger farm families.
Disclaimer
and Reproduction Information: Information in NASD does not
represent NIOSH policy. Information included in NASD appears
by permission of the author and/or copyright holder. More
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: All at The Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH.
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