Review of Health Effects Research - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 89

such as the development of handles for flower pots in the greenhouse industry,
smaller fruit containers that result in lighter loads, and longer rake handles.
Respiratory Disorders
NIOSH AFF staff and the leadership of the NIOSH Ag Centers gave respira-
tory disorders high priority. They have been leaders in characterizing respiratory
exposures to organic dust by using modern industrial hygiene methods. They have
also helped to describe disease phenotypes associated with those exposures and to
define the epidemiology of the respiratory disorders of interest. The AFF Program
was one of the first to fund a study of gene-environment interactions in the farm
setting. Work in respiratory disorders has been done by intramural researchers and
NIOSH-funded extramural researchers that generally have worked well together.
Overall, the publications have had a large impact on the national and international
scientific community. That impact was amplified through funding of well-attended
national and international conferences on agricultural safety and health in which
respiratory disease was one of the main themes. The impact of the output on farm-
ers and farm workers is much more difficult to assess but does not appear to be as
great as it could be. The AFF Program effort in respiratory disease appears to be
limited almost completely to agriculture except for some work in asthma caused
by exposure to snow crabs.
Cancer
The AFF Program has not had a major focus on research in occupational cancer
detection or prevention since the 1990s except through its partnership with NCI
and NIEHS in the Agricultural Health Study (AHS). That illustrates a reasonable
approach to division of health effects research among partner agencies in theory,
but it suffers from the lack of any reported intentional decisionmaking on the part
of NIOSH. The AHS is a prospective study of pesticide health effects in over 88,000
people. Subjects include private and commercial pesticide applicators and their
spouses living in Iowa and North Carolina, most of whom are farmers. The major
focus has been on defining associations between pesticide exposure and cancer.
To date, much less effort has been devoted to creating recommendations, devising
interventions, and building capacity.
Neurological Disease
The AFF Program has not had a major focus on research on occupational
neurological disease detection or prevention. NIOSH has had some activity in this