Changing the child labor laws for agriculture: impact on injury

Abstract

Objective: The child labor laws are intended to protect young workers from the most dangerous jobs. However, children who work on their parents' farms are exempt from these laws. We evaluated the potential for preventing the occurrence of farm injuries among children by changing the US Federal Child Labor Laws, Hazardous Occupations Orders for Agriculture.

Methods: A retrospective case series of 1193 farm injuries among children from the United States and Canada was assembled. The Hazardous Occupations Orders were systematically applied to each case. Injury preventability was estimated.

Results: A total of 286 (24%) cases of injury involved immediate family members engaged in farm work. Among these children, 33% of those aged younger than 16 years and 36% of those aged 16 or 17 years were performing work prohibited under the Hazardous Occupations Orders.

Conclusions: Removing the family farm exemption from the Hazardous Occupations Orders and raising the age restriction for performing hazardous agricultural work from 16 to 18 years would be efficacious in preventing the most serious injuries experienced by young family farm workers. Potential reductions in injury would meet Healthy People 2010 goals for reducing traumatic injury in the agricultural sector.

FIGURE 1—

Flow chart of pediatric farm injuries case series, yielding the 286 cases under study. ^aIncludes 111 cases where the work status of the child could not be determined. …^bIncludes visitors, neighbors, relatives of hired workers, and other workers where the familial relationship is unknown.

FIGURE 2—

Percentage of injured children working on a family farm who were performing a job prohibited under the Hazardous Occupations Orders of Agriculture (HOOA) at the time of injury, by age group and data source.