Increased risk of agricultural injury among African-American farm workers from Alabama and Mississippi.

Research on the epidemiology of agriculture-related injuries has largely ignored African-Americans and farm workers. This cohort study is the first to estimate injury rates and to evaluate prospectively risk factors for agriculture-related injuries and compare them among African-American and Caucasian farmers and African-American farm workers. A total of 1,246 subjects (685 Caucasian owners, 321 African-American owners, and 240 African-American workers) from Alabama and Mississippi were selected from Agricultural Statistics Services databases and other sources and were enrolled between January 1994 and June 1996. Baseline data included detailed demographic, farm and farming, and behavioral information. From January 1994 to April 1998, subjects were contacted biannually to ascertain the occurrence of an agriculture-related injury. Injury rates were 2.9 times (95% confidence interval (CI): 2.0, 4.3) higher for African-American farm workers compared with Caucasian and African-American owners. Part-time farming (relative risk (RR) = 2.0, 95% CI: 1.3, 2.5), prior agricultural injury (RR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.0, 2.1), and farm machinery in fair/poor condition (RR = 1.8, 95% CI: 1.2, 2.7) were also independently associated with injury rates. The results demonstrate the increased frequency of agricultural injury among farm workers and identify a number of possible ways of reducing them.