The forest service workforce in the Pacific Northwest is largely immigrant, low-literate, and Spanish-speaking with unique vulnerabilities due to a lack of skills and safety training, occupational immobility, remote work locations, and small contractor employment.
This pilot, seeks to characterize the burden of heat-related illness in Washington State agriculture, potential risk factors for heat-related illness, and methods for quantifying the physiological effects of heat exposures on agricultural workers.
Tree-fruit activities such as pruning, structural cutting, and green fruit thinning, are high-intensity labor activities traditionally performed on the ground or on ladders. To explore the impact of new technology on worker strain and injury, this project conducted a comparison between three different treatment groups: ground, ladder, and harvest-assisted mobile platforms.
Our previous survey on personal and family health in agricultural families, revealed stress-related behavioral health problems. The purpose of this project is to identify agricultural work stressors and provide training for farm owners and farmworkers to reduce workplace stress.
This project examines the association between heat exposure and traumatic injury risk in agricultural workers, the relationship between heat stress and productivity, and the feasibility of using a biomarker of heat acclimation to detect workers at risk for heat-related illness and injury, with the ultimate goal of prevention.
The forest service workforce is a predominately Spanish-speaking and immigrant population that faces language barriers, isolated working environments, and dangerous working conditions. To address the occupational health and safety concerns of this population, this project explored the injuries and illnesses and related medical treatment. The data collected in this project was used to pilot a job health and safety promotora program for forest service workers.
Fishing is among the most hazardous occupations with a fatality rate 60 times higher than the average rate for civilian workers in the United States. Non-fatal fishing injuries are also prevalent and associated with substantial morbidity for this workforce.
Farmworkers are at an increased risk for heat-related illness given their work requires heavy exertion in an outdoor setting. This study explored the personal, cultural, environmental, and work-related risk factors for heat-related illness for Latino farmworkers in Oregon.
