New and Emerging Research in Agricultural, Forestry, and Fishing Safety and Health - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 164

initiation to completion and for researchers to recognize such issues as changes in
workplace practices.
The list of new technologies and potential emerging issues identified by NIOSH
above appears to be a smorgasbord of unexplained significance; rather than reflect-
ing a process by which the AFF Program can systematically identify and set priori-
ties among new and emerging issues, the list appears to be simply a compilation of
concerns and technologies. Regardless of how the list was assembled, the commit-
tee concurs that such issues as automated equipment, value-added processing on
farms, changing farmer demographics, and zoonoses are emerging research issues
and technologies that would benefit from NIOSH investigation.
NEW RESEARCH IDENTIFIED BY THE COMMITTEE
In evaluating the AFF Program's research, the committee identified several
kinds of research missing in health effects, health services, intervention, and regu-
latory policies. Some research issues that have not been investigated are of great
relevance to improvement of AFF worker safety and health and could substantially
affect safety and health with help from NIOSH.
Health Effects Research
Health effects research is complex, and future efforts need to be directed to-
ward more extensive collaboration among all scientists working in AFF, in both
intramural and extramural settings. Collaboration in multicenter studies of key
clinical problems would increase the power of studies to answer important scien-
tific questions. Future efforts might take investigators in new directions, such as
studying the health effects of shift work and other causes of sleep deprivation on
the AFF workforce, or studying the risk of cancer among fishermen (Spitzer et al.,
1975; Gallagher et al., 1985; Andersen et al., 1999).
The AFF Program has traditionally relied on engineering controls to eliminate
or alleviate work environment hazards. In the new era of genetic and non-genetic
marker technologies, the AFF Program needs to consider using these new preven-
tive technologies for environmental and occupational disease prevention and con-
trol. At least one study has been funded on the emerging issue of gene-environment
interactions; additional research needs to be conducted on preclinical identification
of health hazards through biomarker technologies and include discussions on ethi-
cal concerns surrounding this issue.
New projects, which might be larger than those often funded by NIOSH, need
to have adequate infrastructure to allow them to operate smoothly. The Agricultural
Health Study—an important prospective cohort study of nearly 90,000 farmers and