The High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at the University of Colorado received $504,000 to lead a group of 10 university-based agricultural safety and health research centers in a national initiative to prevent deaths and serious injuries from tractor roll-overs.

The two-year grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) will help the centers build and launch a national public health campaign for preventing deaths and serious injuries from tractor-related incidents that are a leading cause of accidental death in rural communities.

Tractors overturning onto the operator, or people being run over, becoming entangled in power takeoffs, and collisions with non-farm vehicles on public roads are the leading cause of death and serious injury in the nation's agricultural industry. More than 250 farmers, family members, and farm employees die annually in such incidents, half of them when a tractor overturns and crushes the operator.

"The funding will allow the NIOSH-supported Centers for Agricultural Disease and Injury Research, Education, and Prevention and the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety to fill current gaps in their knowledge base and to explore new techniques to promote safer tractor use," says Steve Reynolds, director of the High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety (HICAHS) at Colorado State University. HICAHS will lead the initiative.

Although no official statistics are available, University of Kentucky researchers estimate that 4.46 non-fatal injuries occur for every fatality caused by an overturned tractor. These injuries are often severe and disabling. They also can be financially devastating, causing immediate and long-term medical expenses and the loss of family farms when an owner-operator is incapacitated.

"We are pleased to support this initiative, which enables the centers to join in an unprecedented team effort on this compelling public health issue," says NIOSH Director John Howard. "Finding effective ways to promote tractor safety is a tremendous national challenge to which we and our partners are bringing new resources.

"By 2007, building on the results of this effort, we will be in a good position to seek the involvement of all the stakeholders affected by tractor injuries and fatalities: farm and safety groups, equipment manufacturers and dealers, government agencies and legislators, educators and outreach specialists, and most importantly, farmers, ranchers, and their families. Together, we can make a difference," Reynolds says.

The centers represent a major NIOSH effort to protect the health and safety of agricultural workers and their families. They were established as part of a NIOSH initiative in 1990 to address the nation's pressing agricultural health and safety problems. Nine centers located in every part of the country respond to the issues unique to each region.

For more information, contact Reynolds, 970-491-3141, Stephen.Reynolds@colostate.edu.