The Ideal Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Research Program - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 24

little has been done in either forestry or fishing. The ideal program's extramural
research review process would include gender-related studies, because women have
thus far received little attention as a group of concern.
The committee established a detailed analysis for the ideal AFF Program to
identify various AFF workforce populations in Appendix E.
Health Effects Research
Investigation of health effects in AFF would be the foundation of the AFF
Program. Health effects to be studied include those caused by physical, chemical,
and biological hazards. The health effects would include traumatic injury, hearing
loss, cancer, musculoskeletal conditions, lung disorders, dermatological conditions,
psychosocial effects, mental health disorders, and zoonotic diseases. Tuberculosis
is a persistent problem and would also be studied in AFF workers, because it is
transmitted in the work setting and disproportionately affects AFF workers. The
physiological effects of working in extreme temperatures and of exposure to vibra-
tion from tools would also be explored in AFF workers. The relationship between
incentive pay, worker productivity, and product quality has been studied (Billikopf,
1985), but the health effects of incentive-based pay systems—such as piece rate
that is widely used in agricultural harvest work and other forms of incentives to
increase worker productivity—remains unknown and needs to be examined. There
is also an urgent need to investigate the effects of shift work and other causes of
work-related sleep deprivation on AFF workers. The results of all those studies will
be the foundation of intervention research in the AFF Program. A key element of
intervention research is to disseminate research findings to AFF workers, company
safety officers, Cooperative Extension agents, and public health workers. The exist-
ing NIOSH Ag Centers could play a larger role in this effort than they have to date.
Means of disseminating information relevant to forestry and fishing will have to
be devised. Accurate evaluation of the results of the dissemination effort would be
part of the dissemination plan. Epidemiological research, toxicological research,
laboratory-based physical and safety risk factor research, and exposure assessment
research would be conducted as part of the ideal AFF Program.
Epidemiological Research
An ideal research program would use the surveillance results to identify target
illnesses for further epidemiological study. Appropriate study designs for discerning
disease associations and causation, such as long-term prospective cohort studies,
would be used in such a way as to ensure that results are applicable to the overall
population and important subpopulations. The ideal AFF Program would conduct
population-based studies with adequate staffing to define a variety of health effects