Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention - PILOTS

The Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention (SCAHIP) at the University of Kentucky proposes to continue serving as one of the NIOSH-Centers for Agricultural Disease and Injury Research, Education, and Prevention for 2016-2021. 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 multidisciplinary collaboration within this renewal from disciplines including agriculture, public health, epidemiology, biology, engineering, education, forestry, communications, economics, nursing, medicine, and cooperative extension from six different universities in the Southeast. We propose 6 projects: 1 Interventional Research, 1 Surveillance/ Basic Research, 2 Translational Research, 1 Surveillance /Intervention Research and a Pilot/ Feasibility Program. The application includes an administrative/ evaluation core and a separate strategic plan for outreach. The Center’s theme, “Multidisciplinary partnerships to improve 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. With this renewal, the Southeast Center expects to have a substantial impact on the following priorities: prevention of injuries from tractor overturns; surveillance and risk evaluation of agriculture-related antibiotic resistant infections injury and fatality surveillance and prevention in the logging/ forestry industry; and widespread multidisciplinary training to increase the number of professionals skilled in addressing the many health and safety issues faced by farmers and their families, and agricultural workers. Through our outreach and emerging issues program we will further address issues such as Green-tobacco illnesses, the high injury rate among migrant and Hispanic workers, the increasing number of illnesses and fatalities in the Southeast due to heat stress and the occupational and environmental effects of concentrated farming practices. Each of our projects holds wide relevance for national impact. The Center benefits from strong institutional support from 8 colleges within UK, as well as substantive collaboration with Auburn University, East Carolina University, North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T University, and West Virginia University, and diverse grassroots stakeholders. We hope to continue to be a contributor and collaborator in the family of NIOSH-Ag