Tag: national ag safety health reference documents and visuals

There are a variety of tasks, conditions, and situations in production agriculture that place workers at risk for fatal and nonfatal injury. In addition to workers, family members are at risk for injuries because of the close proximity between the home and the agricultural work environment. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has been directed by Congress to develop a comprehensive agricultural safety and health program to address the risk of injuries and work-related illnesses for workers and family members in production agriculture.

NIOSH completed the Occupational Injury Surveillance of Production Agriculture (OISPA) survey to provide national injury data covering adults age 20 and older who work on farms in the United States. NIOSH provides the data in accessible online electronic tables (e-tables). Click here to be directed to the NIOSH website for complete access to this valuable information. The e-tables present OISPA data for the years 2001, 2004, and 2009. Additional information located on NIOSH’s OISPA website includes links to interpretations of the data provided in NIOSH documents and publications and the NIOSH Cost-effective Rollover Protective Structures (CROPS) website.

Click here for information about childhood agricultural injury survey data from 2001, 2004, 2006, and 2009.

The Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) is a program funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) that monitors acute traumatic occupational deaths and identifies contributing factors. Click here to be directed to the main NIOSH FACE program page.

FACE is a research program. The staff does not enforce compliance with either state or federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards nor do they determine blame. Information collected through FACE is used to identify factors or trends that can be used to make recommendations to reduce the risk of similar deaths. Identifying information for employees or employers is not included in the published FACE reports. Click here to see how NIOSH uses FACE data in its published reports.

At the national level, NIOSH FACE began collecting voluntary fatality information in 1982. NIOSH then funded state-based programs where FACE fatality information was collected beginning in 1989. Currently, the states that manage FACE programs include California, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington. State FACE programs are typically managed by state departments of health or labor. Click here if you are interested in contacting the staff collecting FACE information for a specific state.

FACE reports can be viewed based on specific criteria. Click here to view reports indexed according to location of incident, industry, cause, and population. The reports most relevant to agriculture are indexed by industry (e.g., agriculture, youth agriculture, etc.) and cause (e.g., confined spaces, machine-farming, etc.). View the “What’s New” section to view recent reports based on a specific month and year, or visit the state FACE report map to obtain fatality reports on a state-to-state basis.

Examples of agricultural resources created by FACE include the following:

Iowa FACE – Prevent Fatalities from Grain Entrapments

New York FACE – Fatal Injuries among Animal Handlers in New York State

Washington FACE – Hazards to Orchard Tractor and Machinery (English or Spanish) 

Print, video, and webinar resources are valuable to agricultural producers, agricultural educators, agricultural safety and health professionals, and Cooperative Extension personnel. In addition to the resources available on eXtension and through the  Ag Safety and Health Community of Practice in eXtension site, there are additional agricultural safety and health resource available through universities and organizations. The following information provides links to available video publications (2000 and newer) from universities and agricultural safety and health organizations. Topics are listed below. Click on the topic to be linked to the article where the individual resources links are located by category.

Animal Safety

Chemical Safety

Confined Space Safety

• Grain Bins
• Manure Storages

Crop Safety

Emergency Response and Safety

General Farm and Ranch Safety

Machinery and Equipment Safety

• Equipment
• Rural Roadways
• Tractor and PTO

Occupational Health and Safety

• Falls and Fall Prevention
• Health Conditions
• Personal Protective Equipment
• Weather-Related Issues

Safety for Special Populations

Traumatic Injury

For print resources, click here to access a directory of online agricultural safety and health publications.