Agricultural Health and Safety

Protect yourself from machinery accidents, skin cancer, pesticide exposure, and so much more! Maintaining safety on the farm is a greater challenge than ever. Farmers are trying to expand their farm size and increase production while coping with labor shortages, adverse weather, and equipment problems. Agricultural Health and Safety gives you an in-depth look at these issues and presents effective new approaches to intervention and education for farm health and safety problems. Agricultural Health and Safety discusses new research, education, and prevention programs that have been tested from Maine to California and from Australia to Sweden. These important scientific and analytical studies were presented at the 1996 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Conference in Iowa. In addition to suggesting new ways to deal with the recognized physical hazards of farming, Agricultural Health and Safety discusses the often neglected role of mental health. It examines the role of stress in causing accidents and the risks of depression and suicide among agricultural workers. Agricultural Health and Safety considers a broad range of problems and effective interventions, including: insurance incentives for safe farms accident-prevention programs training for responding to farm emergencies cutting the risks of accident for farm children the ergonomics of milking teaching farm youth about sun safety the risks of exposure to pesticides, fertilizers, and other environmental hazards Agricultural Health and Safety offers practical information on the broad spectrum of health and safety hazards in the farm setting and outlines effective strategies for eliminating them. In addition, it opens new avenues for further study and research. This comprehensive book is an essential resource for agricultural safety and health researchers, program professionals, health care providers in farming communities, professors and students in agromedicine and agricultural programs, and agricultural workers.