Review of Surveillance Research - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 61

Childhood Agricultural Injury Survey (CAIS): The definitions used for children
in this survey were nonstandard. Child workers are legally minors and under 18
years of age. The inclusion of 18- and 19-year-olds created confusion because of
the different legal status of child workers in agriculture under the Fair Labor Stan-
dards Act. In fact, the 1998 General Accounting Office (GAO, now the Government
Accountability Office) report clearly states that the best available data indicated
that there were about 155,000 15- to 17-year-olds working in agriculture in 1997;
most (116,000) were hired workers (GAO, 1998). About 39,000 were self-employed
and unpaid family workers (GAO, 1998). Workers under the age of 15 years need
to also be considered, and the GAO report acknowledges that the finding is an
underestimate.
Work-Related Lung Disease (WoRLD) Surveillance Report and System: This
report (NIOSH, 2000b) contains data collected from only 22 states. Of the 22,
only one corn-belt state was included, and most of the nation's major agricultural
states were not included: Texas, Florida, and California were excluded. The authors
grouped all crops together, even though “crop” could be anything from vegetables
to citrus to soybeans. From the committee's perspective, the document is an ex-
ample of a weak study design and of release of information by NIOSH that is not
representative and therefore not as useful as it could be.
Alaska Occupational Injury Surveillance System (AOISS): This surveillance sys-
tem includes fatal occupational injuries. Information provided focused on fishing-
related fatalities. Oral testimony provided by AFF Program staff to the committee
suggested a potential for replication of its design for the West Coast, Gulf, and
North Atlantic fisheries. No details about how the effort would be expanded to
national or regional settings outside Alaska were provided (NIOSH, 2006a).
OUTPUTS
Historical institutional experience may be helpful in assessing the adequacy
of surveillance definitions routinely used by NIOSH as it implemented the 1990
congressional mandate for the AFF sector. Six years before the mandate, J. Donald
Millar, former director of NIOSH, stated: “in the practice of epidemiological sur-
veillance, the field of occupational safety and health is at least 70 years behind the
field of communicable disease and control” (Halperin et al., 1992). The committee's
review of materials relevant to surveillance for occupational illnesses and injuries
related to AFF suggests this is still true.
NIOSH documents provided to the committee (NIOSH, 2006a) suggest there
is no ongoing national health, hazard, or injury surveillance in agriculture, fish-
ing, and forestry. There is little emphasis on hazard surveillance; the surveys have
mostly collected disease and injury data with little attention to hazards and poten-