Epidemiology of Farm Injuries in New South Wales Australia

Injuries to people living and working on farms in New South Wales continue to be a significant burden on the health and compensation systems agricultural industries and farming families. Strategies to reduce injuries suffered by people on farms rely on accurate in­formation. Unfortunately in Australia there is no one dataset avail­able to describe the circumstances and size of this burden. Hence a number of different data sources are required. To date there has been very little critical examination of what value each of these datasets provides to describing farm injuries. This book provides insight into the magnitude of injuries occurring to people on farms or during agricultural production in NSW using data collected from an Emergency Department Hospital Separations Workers Compensation Claims and Deaths data. It provides a critical examination of the utility of the data and classification systems used for the surveillance of farm injuries in NSW and defines priority areas where farm injury prevention initiatives are required. Finally it provides an evaluation of a rebate scheme to retrofit Rollover Protective Structure (ROPS) on farm tractors in NSW.