Risk factors for agricultural injury: a case-control analysis of Iowa farmers in the Agricultural Health Study.

The purpose of this case-control study nested in the Agricultural Health Study was to assess risk factors for agricultural injury among a large group of Iowa farmers. A questionnaire sent to 6,999 farmers identified 431 cases who had a farm work-related injury requiring medical advice/treatment in the previous year and 473 controls who had no injury in the previous year. We assessed several potential risk factors for injury. A multiple logistic regression analysis showed significant associations between farm work-related injury and weekly farming work hours (> or = 50 hours/week) (OR = 1.65; 95% CI = 1.23-2.21), the presence of large livestock (OR = 1.77; 95% CI = 1.24-2.51), education beyond high school (OR = 1.61; 95% CI = 1.21-2.12), regular medication use (OR = 1.44; 95% CI = 1.04-1.96), wearing a hearing aid (OR = 2.36; 95% CI = 1.07-5.20), and younger age. These results confirm the importance of risk factors identified in previous analytic studies and suggest directions for future research in preventive intervention strategies to reduce farm work-related injuries.

The driver's license list as a population-based sampling frame in Iowa.

Driver's license lists are infrequently used for population-based sampling, presumably because of suspicions of poor population coverage. The 1990 Iowa driver's license list was compared with the 1990 census to evaluate coverage by 5-year age group, sex, resident county, and urbanicity. Coverage exceeded 90% among 15- to 74-year-old men and 15- to 64-year-old women, with uniform coverage by county and county urbanicity group in these age ranges. In Iowa, these lists are convenient and cost-effective and appear to be representative for 25- to 64-year-olds. The representativeness of driver lists in regard to other factors and in other geographic regions deserves further evaluation.