Review of Intervention Research - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 108

document requests, Web hits, conference attendance, and anecdotal reports and
feedback. Evidence suggests that program activities have resulted in many research
partnerships with stakeholders that have led to changes in the workplace and that
interventions that protect both sexes and vulnerable workers and that address the
needs of small businesses have been developed.
Standards, Regulations, Public Policy, and Voluntary Guidelines
The AFF Program has produced several examples of standards, regulations,
public policy, and voluntary guidelines related to intervention research. Those
outputs include revised or proposed standards related to ROPS for tractors, leg-
islation providing rebates for ROPS retrofits, sales tax exemptions for purchase
of personal protective equipment, guidelines for children's agricultural tasks, and
support for development of a statewide cholinesterase-monitoring program and
a federal logging standard.
New Personal Protective Equipment Developed
The AFF Program has developed a prototype improved personal flotation
device that has thin, flexible patches that become illuminated once the personal
flotation device or jacket is submerged and allow quick location and recovery of
victims.
Unique Staff and Laboratory Capability
The High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety and
the NIOSH Pittsburgh Laboratory for designing and testing engineering control
strategies for tractors and other agricultural equipment house unique capabilities
among the Ag Centers and other institute and agency resources.
END OUTCOMES
Demonstrating the impact of intervention research is challenging and complex
given the considerable time often required for a measurable impact on population
illness and injury rates to occur. Furthermore, most diseases and injuries have
multiple causes, and the adequacy of surveillance varies with changes in access to
healthcare and economic disincentives to report. For those reasons it is difficult to
attribute end outcomes directly to specific intervention research projects. However,
there are some encouraging trends in injury and illness data that are consistent with
a favorable impact. For example, since the release of NAGCAT in 1999, the work-