Overall Program Assessment - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 53

BOX 3-4
External Factors That Affect the AFF Program
(as identified by NIOSH)
The extent to which research activities lead to reductions in injury, illness, or exposure
is affected by stakeholder activities and inputs. Actions of industry, labor, and other entities
are beyond NIOSH control and have a substantial bearing on the adoption of AFF Program
outputs in the workplace. NIOSH has identified three general categories of external factors
that may influence AFF Program outcomes: social conditions, economic conditions, and the
current regulatory environment.
Social Conditions: NIOSH identified difficulties in identifying and working with the
most effective partners as an external factor in the category of social conditions. It stated
that early attempts to use the USDA extension service model to distribute research findings
and outputs was abandoned to move toward application of the community nurse model in
rural settings combined with an active surveillance component. No additional information
on the change in tactics was provided. NIOSH also reported some difficulty in partnering
with the medical community to deliver cancer-prevention messages directly to patients: It
was found that physician cooperation was partial or uneven. As an example of favorable but
unpredictable external factors, NIOSH noted the activities of several stakeholder organiza-
tions. The National Safety Council adopted a “Farm Safety and Health Week” and established
the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety in Iowa. The American Society of
Agricultural Engineers (now the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers)
established priorities in safety and health and initiated the Journal of Agricultural Safety and
Health . The Farm Foundation established an agricultural safety workgroup, and a number
of tractor manufacturers launched at-cost rollover-protective-structure retrofit programs.
Finally, the Kellogg Foundation funded several grants that targeted sustainable interventions
for special populations.
Economic Conditions: NIOSH noted a continuing decrease in the number of farmers
and a corresponding increase of concentration in agricultural production. Although the
number of farms has declined, the demand for agricultural products has increased. The
demand has been met through the use of large-scale mechanization, improvements in crop
varieties, and the use of commercial fertilizers and pesticides. The need for human labor
has decreased, as indicated by an increase in labor efficiency from 27.5 acres/worker in
1890 to 740 acres/worker in 1990. Another trend in farms is the aging of self-employed
principal farm operators. This “graying” of the farm population raises concerns about the
long-term health of family farms. It was noted that during the period 1989-2003, farm size
shifted toward the smallest and largest sales categories, and production shifted sharply to
very large family farms and non-family farms. It was predicted that shifts in production
away from farms in the $10,000-249,999 sales class would continue. Small farms tend to
specialize in raising beef cattle and various crops, whereas large farms tend to raise hogs
and higher-value crops. Some 22% of farms produced more than two commodities, and
65 percent produced one or two commodities. Medium and large farms were more likely to
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