Labor Impacts of COVID-19 in U.S. Agriculture: Evidence from the Current Population Survey.

Early research hypothesized impacts of COVID-19 on agricultural workers, food supply, and rural health systems based on population characteristics from data collected preceding the pandemic. Trends confirmed a vulnerable workforce and limits to field sanitation, housing quality, and healthcare. Less is known about eventual, realized impacts. This article uses the Current Population Survey's COVID-19 monthly core variables from May 2020 through September 2022 to document actual impacts. Summary statistics and statistical models for the probability of being unable to work reveal that 6 to 8% of agricultural workers were unable to work early in the pandemic and that impacts were disproportionately negative for Hispanics and those with children. An implication is that targeted policies based on vulnerabilities may minimize disparate impacts of a public health shock. Understanding the full impacts of COVID-19 on essential labor remains important for economics, public policy, and food systems in addition to public health.

How Vulnerable Are U.S. Crop Workers?: Evidence from Representative Worker Data and Implications for COVID-19.

Objectives This paper examines health profiles and work environments of hired U.S. farmworkers to understand the risk to essential workers and their employers, to the food supply, and to rural health systems such as what is possible with the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Large-sample statistical methods and proprietary data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey from 2000 to 2018 were used to assess factors associated with exposure to COVID-19 and vulnerabilities associated with medical complications. Results An aging workforce and increased access to health care within the crop worker population has been associated with a higher reported incidence of diabetes, asthma, and heart disease among workers over time. These trends confirm a vulnerable, but essential, workforce with higher risks for COVID-19 complications than would have been true of U.S. farmworkers as a group in earlier years. Conclusions Increasing age and disease burden in the U.S. agricultural labor force puts workers at increased risk for developing COVID-19 complications. Limits to field sanitation and housing quality inflate the probability of the development of COVID-19 hotbeds in rural communities that could further compromise the physical health of workers, the economic health of farm establishments, the agricultural supply-chain, and rural health capacities. Additional and more targeted worker protections may minimize public health and economic costs in the long run.

Pesticide exposure and the physical and economic health of US crop workers.

We examine the impact of pesticide exposure on crop worker health and earnings using 2002 through 2016 data from the US Department of Labor, Employment, and Training Administration's National Agricultural Workers Survey. Our findings show that pesticide exposure is positively related to certain health conditions and that wage patterns are consistent with compensating wage differentials. The offsetting impacts of these equilibrium aspects are limited by how wage premia for assumed health risks depend on worker bargaining power and agency. We document differences for undocumented versus documented workers with implications for compensation and occupational health policies in this labor-intensive, essential sector.

Economic Evaluation and Systematic Review of Publicly Available Workers' Compensation Practice Details and Mod Rate Calculators Applied to Upper Midwest Agriculture.

Background: Agricultural employment is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. Workers' compensation coverage requirements for agricultural work vary from state to state, and experience modifier rates (E-mods) affecting insurance premiums sometimes vary drastically across state lines and according to claim severities and farm sizes. We proposed to develop an interactive software application that would educate farmers on the impact of employee time loss on annual E-mod factor change specific to their geographic location and farm size.Methods: We conducted a comparative analysis of workers' compensation formulations, including E-mods among Upper Midwestern states. We performed sensitivity analysis of the formulas to claim amount and payroll to highlight differences related to claim severity and to farm size.Results: The state to state variation and remarkable complexity of these formulas was confirmed. E-Mod factors are shown to increase substantially across states with both claim size and payroll, though are found to be similar across Wisconsin and Minnesota which were examined in detail.Conclusions: The findings confirm that creating a nationally applicable interactive educational software tool for farmers and ranchers to view hypothetical rate changes by inputting on-farm injury scenarios represents a significant challenge and that educational outreach coupled with the use of commercial software, especially as less costly options become available, may serve the role of minimizing misunderstandings by current producers as may other informational sources.

Do minimum wage laws affect those who are not covered? Evidence from agricultural and non-agricultural workers.

Some employers are not obligated to pay at least minimum wages to all employees. U.S. farm employers comprise one of these groups. Employees of large farms and H-2A workers (lawfully admitted, nonimmigrant workers performing temporary or seasonal agricultural work) are protected by minimum wage legislation, while some migrant workers (often those paid piece rates) are exempt. U.S. agriculture also is characterized by a large percentage of unauthorized workers who may or may not earn above minimum wage. Following insights from dual labor market theory and from theories of the signaling capacity of the minimum wage, we compare labor market outcomes in the agricultural sector (where minimum wage coverage is limited) to low wage/skill non-agricultural sectors (where minimum wage coverage is more complete) nationally using data from the Current Population Survey. We then extend our analysis to a detailed state-level case study of agricultural workers in California using a representative survey of employed farm workers. Results suggest wage increases for covered workers that exceed those for uncovered workers, but insignificant differences in hours worked. This is the first study to our knowledge to examine the impacts of minimum wage coverage on agricultural workers relative to other workers for the U.S.

Agricultural Youth Injuries: A Review of 2015-2017 Cases from U.S. News Media Reports.

Background: The hazardous nature of the agricultural environment, reflected in the numerous injuries and deaths to children who live, work and play on farms, coupled with the lack of a comprehensive national surveillance system in the United States, highlights the need for making the best use of publicly available youth agricultural injury data. Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe a 3-year collection of youth agricultural injuries using the publicly available injury and fatality data from AgInjuryNews.org and present recommendations for future injury prevention strategies. Methods: Data were obtained from AgInjuryNews.org, a web-based collection of U.S. news reports of agricultural injuries. We analyzed cases from 2015 to 2017 for youth aged 0-17. We classified injuries as occupational and non-occupational related, based on the Farm and Agricultural Injury Classification (FAIC) code. Each case was also coded for source and event using the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS). Results: Of the 348 injury reports reviewed, 51% were fatal, and about one-third of the victims were 6 years old or younger. Most injuries were non-occupational, and the most frequent injury sources were vehicles (includes tractors and all-terrain vehicles) and machinery. Youth operators, extra riders, roadway operations, and unsupervised youth playing near or in a worksite were four key contributing factors associated with vehicle and machinery related injuries. Conclusions: This study reaffirms that youth agricultural-related injuries and fatalities are still a persistent problem in the United States. The hypothesis generating AgInjuryNews system can provide more current data than traditional surveillance datasets as a tool for understanding the sources of youth agricultural injuries, monitoring injury trends, and informing policy efforts and prevention strategies. Future studies should continue to explore and evaluate the comprehensiveness of this system's data and the impact of its dissemination, as well as similar rural health informatics solutions for integration into sustainable interventions that can be customized and delivered domestically and abroad.

Drug overdose and child maltreatment across the United States' rural-urban continuum.

This national study of US counties (n = 2963) investigated whether county-level drug overdose mortality is associated with maltreatment report rates, and whether the relationship between overdose mortality and maltreatment reports is moderated by a county's rural, non-metro or metro status. Data included county-level 2015 maltreatment reports from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, modeled drug-overdose mortality from the Centers for Disease Control, United States Department of Agriculture Rural-Urban Continuum Codes, US Census demographic data and crime reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All data were linked across counties. Zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression was used for county-level analysis. As hypothesized, results from the ZINB model showed a significant and positive relationship between drug overdose mortality and child maltreatment report rates (χ = 101.26, p < .0001). This relationship was moderated by position on the rural-urban continuum (χ=8.76, p = .01). For metro counties, there was a 1.9% increase in maltreatment report rate for each additional increment of overdose deaths (IRR=1.019, CI=[1.010, 1.028]). For non-metro counties, the rate of increase was 1.8% higher than for metro counties (IRR=1.018, CI=[1.006, 1.030]); for rural counties, the rate of increase was 1.2% higher than for metro counties (IRR=1.012, CI=[0.999, 1.026]). Additional research is needed to determine why the relationship between drug overdose mortality and maltreatment reports is stronger in non-metro and rural communities. One potential driver requiring additional inquiry is that access to mental and physical health care and substance use treatment may be more limited outside of metropolitan counties.

Field Sanitation in U.S. Agriculture: Evidence from NAWS and Future Data Needs.

OBJECTIVES: We studied relationships between demographic and work-related characteristics and exposure to health-related risk associated with field sanitation within the population of U.S. farmworkers while critically examining adequacy of existing data toward understanding patterns. METHODS: We used statistical and econometric large-sample data methods to analyze correlations between observable variables and access to field sanitation as measured by responses to the nationally and regionally representative National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS). RESULTS: Analysis suggests that field sanitation risk is relatively low on U.S. farms, especially in the most current periods, though there is regional variation. A number of socioeconomic characteristics are predictive of remaining gaps in access to basic field sanitation. We found that men, workers with less education, workers who do not speak English well, and those from Mexico are systematically more likely to lack access to field sanitation than are other workers, all else equal. We also found associations with job-related characteristics. CONCLUSION: We conclude that regulatory standards do not affect all workers equally and that field sanitation risk for some workers has continued though the current period. Basic sanitation definitions provided in available data are limited and may not reflect the true extent of risk associated with the incomplete nature of field sanitation access. This motivates the importance of continued study of field sanitation and of targeted public policies.

Maternal benzene exposure and low birth weight risk in the United States: a natural experiment in gasoline reformulation.

We investigate the relationship between maternal exposure to benzene and birth weight outcomes for resident births in the United States in 1996 and 1999, taking advantage of a natural experiment afforded by the regulation of benzene content of gasoline in various American cities. Regression results show that a unit increase (µg/m(3)) in maternal exposure to benzene reduces birth weight by 16.5 g (95% CI, 17.6 to 15.4). A unit increase in benzene exposure increases the odds of a low birth weight event by 7%. Similarly, a 1 µg/m(3) increase in benzene concentration increases the odds of very low birth weight event by a multiplicative factor of 1.23 (95% CI, 1.19 to 1.28). Difference-in-differences analyses show that birth weight increased by 13.7 g (95% CI, 10.7 to 16.8) and the risk of low birth weight decreased by a factor of .95 (95% CI, .93 to .98) in counties experiencing a 25% decline in benzene concentrations from 1996 to 1999. Public health policy and economic implications of results are discussed.