Since its inception in 1992, the Southeast Center has built and maintained a strong, transdisciplinary, “team science” approach to agricultural occupational safety and health. The team of investigators and key personnel funded through CDC/NIOSH Cooperative Agreement 2U54OH00757 includes nationally recognized leaders in public health, agricultural engineering, epidemiology, medicine and nursing, curriculum and instructional design, and communications.  Together, these men and women are applying a holistic, systems-oriented approach to studying and solving persistent, emerging, and historically under-studied problems in agricultural occupational safety and health. This work is critical because workers in production agriculture, forestry, commercial fishing (AFF) and hunting experience a work-related fatality rate that is more than 7 times higher than that of all other industries (DOL 2011).

In the past, worker protection often emphasized behavioral training and the repetition of safety rules, with compliance sought through regulatory and administrative means. Less attention was paid to the importance of control technologies and to the circumstances and contingencies that cause individuals who know safety rules to violate those rules and risk injury or death. Equally scant attention was paid to the direct and indirect costs of injury for the worker, employer, and other stakeholders. Recognizing this gap, the Center has conceived, developed and evaluated a set of narrative simulation exercises and computerized cost-analysis tools that are effective in promoting voluntary risk/hazard reduction among adult workers and youth alike. These materials have been developed, field-tested and evaluated through the Kentucky ROPS Project (completed), Preventing Farm Injuries to Rural Youth (completed), and the Economics of Preventing Agricultural Injuries to Adolescent & Adult Farmers (ongoing).

Other Center projects and activities address vulnerable populations (e.g., migrant and seasonal farm workers, older farmers), while two major translational projects, Nurses Utilizing Research, Service, Education and Practice (NURSE-AP) and Teaching Public Health Students about Agricultural Safety & Health, are helping to train and equip highly skilled professionals for our nation’s public health workforce. These projects constitute a model response to Healthy People 2020 objectives for further integrating core competencies in public health education, cultivating a highly skilled public health workforce, and improving public health infrastructure and preparedness (DHSS, 2010).

• Latino Farm Workers, Work Organization, Safety and Health
• Nurses Utilizing Research, Service, and Education in Applied Practice
• Economics of Preventing Agricultural Injuries to Adolescent and Adult Farmers
• An Analysis of Timber Harvesting Injuries and Prevention Mechanisms in the Southeastern US, 1996-2006
• Pesticide Biomonitoring in Florida Agricultural Workers
• Health of Agricultural Populations (MPH, DrPH, and PhD/Gerontology)
• Safety for Fish Farm Workers
• Agricultural Safety & Health Training for Public Health Graduate Students (TPG)
• Developing a Smart ROPS Decision-Making Guide
• Developing and Testing Interactive Agricultural Health and Safety Curricula for 4-H Youth
• Characteristics of All-Terrain Vehicles and Their Operators on Kentucky Farms (feasibility study)
• Linkage of Atrazine Exposure and Birth Data in Kentucky: Assessment of Data Sources and Needs (feasibility study)
• Characterizing the Health Risks Associated with Domestic Well Water Use in Rural Western Kentucky Leading to an Intervention Study (feasibility study)
• Commonwealth Collaborative Award: Improving Latino Health Access

• Aquaculture Safety and Health
• Proyecto de Salud de los Trabajadores del Campo: Latino Farmworker Health Project
• Nurse Agricultural Education Project
• Poison Center Surveillance of Agriculture-related Poisonings
• National Tractor Safety Initiative: Costs of Tractor Operator Injuries from Overturns and Highway Collisions
• National Tractor Safety Initiative: Designing Community-based Social Marketing Programs for Tractor Safety
• Partnerships for Preventing Farm-Related Injuries to Rural Youth
• Engaging High School Students in Activities to Prevent Tractor-related Injuries
• Tennessee and Kentucky Latino Health Access Coalitions
• Agricultural Disability Awareness and Risk Education (AgDARE)
• Children's Injuries on Beef Cattle Farms
• Farmer Suicides: A Ten-Year Analysis in Three Southeastern States
• Kentucky Farm Family Health and Hazard Surveillance Project
• Green Tobacco Sickness in Children and Adolescents
• Migrant Vocational Rehabilitation Project
• Partnering with Stakeholders for Prevention
• Virginia Farm Bureau Safety Education and Outreach Program
• The Kentucky ROPS Project (ROPS 1, ROPS II)
• Cost-effectiveness of a ROPS retrofit education campaign
• Ratio of Non-fatal to Fatal Operator Injuries for Overturns of Farm Tractors without Rollover Protective Structures (NTSI)

The Southeast Center’s research to practice (r2p) activities are based on working partnerships with farm operators and employees, vocational agricultural instructors, Extension agents, and leaders in public health, nursing, engineering and other disciplines. We are proud to note the contributions of lifelong and part-time farmers among our students and faculty, whose hands-on experience has been instrumental in developing popular Center materials. These include, but are not limited to, the following examples:

• Agricultural Disability and Risk Awareness Education (AgDARE)
• Mr. Good Egg Farmer (tractor safety exercise for youth)
• Narrative Simulation Exercises
• Sound Advice for Farming: Preventing noise-induced hearing loss
• The Kentucky ROPS Notebook
• History of Ag Health, USA (PowerPoint)
• History of Ag Health, USA (paper)