2008 Woodie Awards
Farming dangerous, study shows
Kayla Kelley - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 1/22/08 Section: Metro
Farming deaths accounted for approximately one-third of work-related deaths in the year 2007, according to one program's evaluation.
The Iowa Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program is a federally funded state program that totals work-related deaths in hopes of preventing future accidents.
"The ultimate goal is prevention," said Murray Madsen, the chief investigator for the program.
Data from the evaluation also show officials where occupational fatalities occur most frequently.
Madsen said the number of farm deaths per year was consistent with 2006 statistics, which is 25 percent below the 10-year average.
Many of the deaths could be attributed to farmers not having the adequate rollover protection, getting run over by a farming vehicle, or having a traffic accident when transporting equipment, he said.
Iowa's division of the program specifically focuses on agricultural traumatic deaths and works for outreach and prevention of accidents that occur under those circumstances.
Of the 79 worker fatalities in Iowa in 2007, 22 were farmers, 23 occurred in trucking incidents, and more than a dozen were at commercial or industrial workplaces.
The fatality-assessment program's website details the work-related deaths from 1994 to 2006, but the 2007 incident descriptions will not appear until this time next year.
The reason behind the delay is to prevent people from identifying the victims, Madsen said.
In past years, deaths that resulted from murder or suicides were also included in the work-related death toll - the project requires the fatality-assessment program to track any traumatic work death or any crime committed at work, he said.
These fatalities contribute to the work-related death figures, because they occur at job sites and are related to the person's employment.
Iowa is not the only one to have a fatality-assessment program, but Madsen feels that Iowa keeps much closer statistics on the reported deaths.
The data-collecting program is a division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which has cooperative agreements with nine states that have similar programs and voluntarily notify the department of occupational fatalities.
The evaluation was jointly conducted by the UI Injury Prevention Research Center and the Iowa Department of Public Health and State Medical Examiner's Office.
E-mail DI reporter Kayla Kelley at:
kayla-kelley@uiowa.edu
The Iowa Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program is a federally funded state program that totals work-related deaths in hopes of preventing future accidents.
"The ultimate goal is prevention," said Murray Madsen, the chief investigator for the program.
Data from the evaluation also show officials where occupational fatalities occur most frequently.
Madsen said the number of farm deaths per year was consistent with 2006 statistics, which is 25 percent below the 10-year average.
Many of the deaths could be attributed to farmers not having the adequate rollover protection, getting run over by a farming vehicle, or having a traffic accident when transporting equipment, he said.
Iowa's division of the program specifically focuses on agricultural traumatic deaths and works for outreach and prevention of accidents that occur under those circumstances.
Of the 79 worker fatalities in Iowa in 2007, 22 were farmers, 23 occurred in trucking incidents, and more than a dozen were at commercial or industrial workplaces.
The fatality-assessment program's website details the work-related deaths from 1994 to 2006, but the 2007 incident descriptions will not appear until this time next year.
The reason behind the delay is to prevent people from identifying the victims, Madsen said.
In past years, deaths that resulted from murder or suicides were also included in the work-related death toll - the project requires the fatality-assessment program to track any traumatic work death or any crime committed at work, he said.
These fatalities contribute to the work-related death figures, because they occur at job sites and are related to the person's employment.
Iowa is not the only one to have a fatality-assessment program, but Madsen feels that Iowa keeps much closer statistics on the reported deaths.
The data-collecting program is a division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which has cooperative agreements with nine states that have similar programs and voluntarily notify the department of occupational fatalities.
The evaluation was jointly conducted by the UI Injury Prevention Research Center and the Iowa Department of Public Health and State Medical Examiner's Office.
E-mail DI reporter Kayla Kelley at:
kayla-kelley@uiowa.edu
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