The death rate for Canadian children injured while working or playing on farms hasn’t risen over time but hasn’t dropped either, according to the latest data mined by the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA).
Data collected by CASA for the latest Canadian agricultural injury surveillance program (CAISP) report shows 274 youths from ages one to 19 have been killed as a result of agricultural work or hazards on the farm between 1990 and 2003. From 1990 to 2000, 2,828 youths in that age group were admitted to hospital for at least one day for such reasons, CASA said in a release Friday.
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“There was a gradual decline in the number of children and youth admitted to the hospital, but this may have been due, in part, to changes in hospital admission policies,” CAISP report co-author Louise Hagel said in the release.
CASA executive director Marcel Hacault said the data show children ages one to four are most vulnerable to fatal injury while youths ages 15-19 are at greatest risk for hospitalization due to farm injury.
Youths under age 20 accounted for 17.4 per cent of all agricultural deaths from 1990 to 2003 and 19 per cent of hospitalizations from 1990 to 2000.
Almost half of the 274 deaths were due to machine runovers and rollovers, specifically runovers of bystanders or alighted passengers (17.2 per cent), rollovers (15 per cent) and extra rider runovers (14.2 per cent), the CAISP report said. Another 12.4 per cent were due to drownings, which accounted for 35.6 per cent of deaths among children ages one to nine. Machine entanglements caused 5.5 per cent of reported deaths, bringing the total for machinery-related farm fatalities among youths to 66.1 per cent.
Of the 2,828 hospitalizations counted, 17.8 per cent involved animals, 15.7 per cent entanglements, 14.8 per cent falls from height and 8.5 per cent machine runovers. Another 8.1 per cent of hospitalized victims had been pinned or struck by a machine.
Listed by age, children under age four and between ages 10 and 14 were most often hospitalized by animals; children ages five to nine, by falls from height, usually from barn lofts; and children ages 15-19, by machine entanglements, 20 per cent of which resulted in amputations.
Machinery-related deaths happened most often between April and October, peaking in August, while non-machinery-related deaths happened most often in June, July and August. Hospitalizing injuries for children also increased over the crop season, peaking in July and August, CAISP reported.
The CAISP report also noted that of the youths who died in farm injury events, 70.1 per cent were children or other relatives of the farm’s owner/operator.
Hacault noted that some provinces, such as Manitoba, now offer funding to help families set up safe, enclosed play areas in working farmyards.
CASA also co-ordinates safety days for younger school-age children, working with the Progressive Agriculture Foundation.
