Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention

The Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention at the University of Kentucky (UK) proposes to continue serving as a NIOSH Agricultural Center for 2011- 2016. The Center, founded in 1992, is one of seven centers of excellence in the UK College of Public Health. Our location on a land-grant campus allows substantive transdisciplinary collaboration within this renewal from disciplines including agriculture, public health, epidemiology, engineering, education, social work, communications, economics, nursing, medicine, and Cooperative Extension. We propose 9 projects: 3 are comprehensive R01 research; 2 are R18 prevention/intervention; 1 is an R03 education/translation project, and 3 are R18 education/translation projects. The application includes an administrative/planning core and separate strategic plans for outreach, pilot/feasibility studies, and evaluation. The Center's theme, "Transdisciplinary approaches to agricultural safety and health in the Southeast," is further distinguished by our emphasis on serving limited resource and vulnerable farm populations while addressing persistent and emerging agricultural occupational safety · concerns. The region served by the Center will continue to be the 10 southeastern states of AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA and WV. With this renewal, the Southeast Center expects to have a substantial impact on the following priorities: Hispanic farmworker safety and work organization; tractor overturns; cancer incidence in farmers/cancer surveillance; hazards in aquaculture; the personal, operational, and societal costs of injuries and the cost-effectiveness of prevention; safety communication in the logging industry; nurses' education, service, and clinical practice in farm safety and health; graduate education in agricultural occupational safety and health, and Native American farm safety. While projects are based in our 10-state region, each holds wider relevance as well as real potential for national impact. The Center benefits from a strong institutional commitment and support from 9 colleges within the UK system on the Lexington campus. The Center also enjoys substantive collaboration with researchers at Auburn University, Wake Forest University, the Northeast Center for Agricultural & Occupational Health, and diverse grassroots stakeholders. In concert with regional stakeholders and with transdisciplinary teams of highly qualified investigators, the Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention has developed an integrated, mutually reinforcing package of research, prevention/intervention, and education/translation projects aimed at achieving measurable improvements in agricultural occupational safety and health practice and outcomes.