Agricultural Safety & Health

The ASH Core trains masters and doctoral students for a wide variety of professions to address safety and health concerns in the agriculture, forestry, and fishing (AFF) sector. Agriculture is a high-risk industry for injuries and various diseases including lung diseases, infectious diseases, noise-induced hearing loss, skin diseases, and cancers associated with chemical use and prolonged sun exposure. Farming is both an occupation and a lifestyle, with families exposed to the same hazards as the worker because the workplace is also home. Farms tend to be small, family-owned businesses whose workers are isolated from contact with traditional occupational safety and health agencies and professionals. Since few institutions offer graduate training for agricultural safety and health, University of Kentucky developed this training program to prepare transdisciplinary students to recognize, evaluate, and control the occupational hazards of workers in this large, important industry sector.

Students who are admitted to any CAFE masters or doctoral program may contact the ASH Core faculty about their interest in becoming an ASH Core Trainee. Students’ graduate school applications and personal interviews with ASH Core faculty are used to determine acceptance into our program. Trainees are provided tuition, a monthly stipend, and health insurance if needed. Trainees are also provided financial support for their research and funding for travel to conferences and professional meetings to present their work.

The ASH Core Training program is based in the Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering (BAE) Department--the academic home of the CARERC—within the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment (CAFE), but supported by faculty from several departments. (www.ca.uky.edu) The CAFE has outstanding field and laboratory training facilities where students can learn agricultural safety and health in "real-world" settings. Also, a major strength of the ASH Core is its rich collaborations with a wide variety of industry, government, and academic partners to support student training and research. Therefore, ASH Core trainees may be graduate students in any CAFE Department, but with an interest in having a training and research focus on agricultural safety and health.

The ASH Core Trainees will develop the following competencies:

1. Learn the specific disease and injury risks of agricultural populations.

2. Understand how disease and injury risks vary across the many different segments of agricultural populations, including children, older workers, farm women, minority farmers, persons with disabilities, hired farm workers, including migrant and seasonal farm workers, loggers, and fishermen.

3. See the value of multidisciplinary professionals, such as Extension specialists, healthcare providers, federal, state, and local public health professionals, researchers, working together to identify and address issues affecting agricultural health and injury prevention.

4. Develop data collection and analysis skills for evaluating agricultural safety and health problems.

5. Envision and carry out projects to assess agricultural health and safety problems, recommend interventions, and evaluate intervention effectiveness.

6. Develop communication skills to educate agricultural populations and public health, agricultural health, and safety professionals about disease and injury risks and preventive measures.

In addition to the trainee’s degree-specific course requirements, all ASH Core trainees are required to complete BAE 570: Agriculture Safety and Health Hazard Evaluation and Controls (3 hours). This course examines the unique hazards that affect the health, safety and productivity of farmers, farm family members, hired farm workers, and others who live or work in agricultural environments. The course is taught every Fall semester. In addition to the problem sets and the examinations, an exciting aspect of this course are on-site hazard evaluations at selected agricultural or forestry worksites.

Besides BAE 570, ASH Core trainees must also complete the three required CARERC interdisciplinary courses for a total of 13 elective hours of course credit. These courses are approved to serve as electives for students in CAFE masters and doctoral degree programs. Click here to view the syllabus

If the departments allow for a thesis or non-thesis option, CARERC trainees must take the thesis option as we believe this culminating academic experience helps the students to develop the logic, analytical, writing, and oral presentation skills required for career success. A portion of the trainee’s thesis or dissertation must focus on a selected agricultural health or safety problem. Facilities, equipment, and financial resources are available to support faculty-mentored student research. (See ASH Core Trainee websites for descriptions of the types of research projects our trainees conduct.) To help support trainee research, the ASH Core is closely allied with the Southeast Center for Agriculture Health and Injury Prevention (SCAHIP), one of the NIOSH-funded agricultural research centers. (www.uky.edu/scahip). SCAHIP provides broad opportunities for trainees to develop skills by working on a wide variety research, training, and outreach activities.

ASH Core graduates have been employed into a wide variety of positions. Also, many of our MS graduates have continued their education in doctoral (PhD, DrPH) or professional training programs (MD, DVM). Our graduates have been employed as: high school vocational agriculture teachers; college professors; staff at major research centers; agriculture and forest product company environmental health and safety managers; and a variety of roles in local, state, and federal governmental agencies. Whatever future roles our trainees take, they are able to use their knowledge and skills to address agricultural health and safety issues.