Program Scoring and Rationale - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 159

garnered the most credibility when researchers have demonstrated that they are
sensitive to stakeholder needs, which vary greatly among the three sectors.
A recurrent important impediment to NIOSH-sponsored programs has been
lack of credibility among stakeholders. NIOSH has demonstrated that it can forge
helpful linkages with segments of economic sectors, as in the mining and construc-
tion industries. However, such linkages to directly engage workers are not appar-
ent between the AFF Program and two of its three target worker populations: in
agriculture and forestry. Without a strong buy-in from its targeted populations,
the program may appear to be out of touch with its stakeholders and unresponsive
to the realities of the workplace environment, and its work may therefore not be
credible among farm workers, loggers, and fishermen.
Stakeholders have also at times confused NIOSH with the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration (OSHA); most workers are more familiar with OSHA's
role in the workplace than with NIOSH's research. That has led to reluctance to
work with NIOSH, in that some stakeholders are hesitant to work with a regula-
tory agency.
In its recent NORA initiative, the AFF Program has formed a NORA AFF
Sector Council. Self-employed and unpaid family workers are represented on this
council, but it includes no current hired laborers in AFF or direct representatives
of hired laborers who were elected in a direct and democratic process by current
AFF workers.
Populations at Risk
The AFF Program targeted specific populations that it deemed at higher risk
than others but omitted certain other populations and fell short in defining the
entire population of AFF workers at risk of injury and illness. There has yet to be a
program-wide endeavor to characterize the numbers and types of workers involved
in agriculture, forestry, and fishing. Some populations, such as hired farm workers,
have also been poorly defined or miscategorized, and others, such as ranchers, have
been largely unaddressed.
AFF Program leadership has a less than satisfactory record in addressing hired
farm workers and did not respond to priority issues previously identified for this
subpopulation. In May 1995, NIOSH convened a national task force of experts to
identify priorities for surveillance and research on occupational safety and health
of hired farm workers. The task force met, but the effort was stalled, and its work
was put on hold. Three years later, Dr. Sherry Baron contacted a member of the task
force to request that the California Institute for Rural Studies prepare the report,
and the task force reached consensus without delay. Shortly after submitting their
report to NIOSH for review in November 1998, task force members were informed
that the report was issued ( http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/hfw-index.html ). For what