Surveillance of hospitalized farm injuries in Canada

Objective—To provide an overview of hospital admissions for the treatment of farm injuries. Methods—Design: descriptive analysis of data from the Canadian Agricultural Injury Surveillance Program (CAISP). Population: persons experiencing a farm injury requiring hospitalization, April 1991 to March 1995. Access to hospital separation data was negotiated within Canadian provinces. Individual cases were verified by medical records personnel and supplemental data describing injury circumstances were obtained. Analysis: descriptive analyses characterizing farm injuries by: persons involved, mechanisms, primary diagnoses, and agents of injury. Results—Data from 8/10 Canadian provinces representing 98% of the farm population were obtained. A total of 8263 farm injuries were verified. Adults aged 60 years and older were over-represented in these injuries. Leading external causes of agricultural machinery injury included entanglements, being pinned/struck by machinery, falls, and runovers. Non-machinery causes included falls from heights, animal related trauma, and being struck/by against objects. Leading diagnoses varied by age group, but included: limb fractures/open wounds, intracranial injuries, skull fractures, and spinal/truncal fractures. Conclusions—CAISP is a new agricultural injury surveillance program in Canada. Data from this system are actively used to inform prevention initiatives, and to indicate priorities for etiological and experimental research in the Canadian agricultural setting.