A $6.9 million grant that funds the Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health (CS-CASH) in the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health has been renewed for another five years.
Risto Rautiainen, Ph.D., director of the Agricultural Health Center and professor of environmental, agricultural and occupational health, College of Public Health, is principal investigator on the highly competitive grant through the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The original five-year grant was received in 2011 and totaled $6.5 million.
"For the past 20 years, agriculture has been the most hazardous industry in the United States," Dr. Rautiainen said. In 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 24.9 fatalities per 100,000 workers in agriculture, compared to 3.3 per 100,000 workers in all industries combined.
UNMC’s center, one of 11 funded in the United States, will focus on innovative projects that will research emerging and persistent agricultural safety and health issues, said Ellen Duysen, coordinator of CS-CASH, which covers seven Midwest states – Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri and Kansas.
The center will conduct the following projects during the next five years:
- Pilot/Feasibility Projects Program – funds three or more 12- to 18-month projects per year with a goal to convert them into larger externally funded projects. The program has a $40,000 commitment from UNMC’s vice chancellor for research to fund two projects per year. (In the past five years, the center funded 26 pilot projects.)
- Agricultural dust-induced airway injury and repair;
- Health and safety risks among immigrant cattle feedlot workers in Nebraska and Kansas;
- Enhancing the health and safety of range bison herd workers – in collaboration with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences;
- Surveillance of agricultural injury and illness in the Central States Region – in collaboration with the National Agricultural Statistics Service;
- Emerging issues program – examines trends and addresses issues that affect the health and safety of people who work in agriculture; and.
- Outreach in the Central States Region to include:
- Launching radio social marketing campaign targeted to women in agriculture;
- Designing and developing innovative training podcasts and eHealth toolkits for farm women and military veteran farmers;
- Supporting and advancing current information technology efforts that disseminate occupational safety and health; and
- Enlisting citizen scientists to identify, evaluate and disseminate new technology products and applications (e.g. heat sensing shirt; smart watches and clip-ons to detect particulates in grain elevators).
"We are excited to start this new five-year center program and to continue to serve as a resource for Nebraska and the seven-state region, improving the health and safety of those who work in agriculture," Dr. Rautiainen said.
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