Agricultural injuries among farm and non-farm children and adolescents in Alberta, Canada.

BACKGROUND

Understanding of the specific risk of agricultural injury sustained by different populations of children and adolescents is needed for effective safety intervention.

OBJECTIVE

To compare the rates and patterns of agricultural injury incidence (fatal and non-fatal injury) between farm and non-farm children less than 18 years of age in Alberta, Canada.

METHODS

A total of 115 378 children (five subgroups: two groups of farm children and three groups of non-farm children) in Alberta were followed from 1999 to 2010 to examine injury incidence using the linkage of three administrative health databases. A recurrent event survival analysis using Cox proportional hazards regression was carried out.

RESULTS

A total of 1 849 agricultural injury episodes (1 616 emergency department visits, 225 hospitalizations, and 8 deaths) were identified from 1999 to 2010. The age- and gender-adjusted rate (per 100 000 person years) of agricultural injury was 672.3 for rural-living farm children, 369.4 for urban-living farm children, 180.2 for rural non-First Nations (FN) children, 64.4 for rural FN children, and 23.7 for urban children in descending order.

CONCLUSION

Specific strategies for different children's populations to prevent agricultural injuries and to extend agricultural injury controls to non-farming populations are needed.