Causal factors in production agriculture injuries: working children and youth versus adults

摘要

The high incidence rates of agriculture-related fatal and nonfatal injuries are a continuing concern. Some surveillance information is available about injury types and circumstances. However, a gap remains about whether injuries to working children and youth (i.e.aged 6-17) differ from those experienced by adults and whether they require a unique prevention strategy. We reviewed existing literature and selected high quality studies of traditional agriculture areas with both age and injury causal factor breakdowns. We reclassified injury causal factors into types according to a simplified scheme and included our own data from Wisconsin's fatal and nonfatal surveillance systems. We located very few published studies of traditional agriculture areas with good case ascertainment, large sample sizes, and breakdowns of injury causal factors by age ranges. When fatal and nonfatal injury data from Ontario, Canada and Wisonsin, USA were reclassified according to our simplified scheme for causal factors, there were few important differences between adults and working children and adolescents in rankings or proportionate weights. Other data suggested that children and youth in traditional agriculture areas perform, by and large, the same types of work as adults and are exposed to the same hazards. Better surveillance information is needed to guide prevention practices and intervention research, especially data about ages, causal factors, and other aspects of injury circumstances. This limited review suggests that the same injury reduction strategies can benefit adults and working children and adolescents.