Non-fatal agricultural injury surveillance in the United States: A review of national-level survey-based systems

BackgroundCurrently, surveillance of non-fatal agricultural injuries in the U.S. mainly relies on national surveys, and to date, none of these surveys were formally reviewed. Our objective was to review and evaluate these survey-based systems, to identify critical gaps in them and provide recommendations to improve them. MethodsWe used the updated Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to describe each system and evaluate each system's attributes like simplicity, flexibility, data quality, timeliness, representativeness, etc. ResultsFour adult and two youth national surveys collected data for non-fatal agricultural injuries in the U.S. The evaluation identified three major gaps: 1) insufficient data quality attributed to non-response, measurement errors, and underreporting; 2) untimeliness of data; and 3) lack of flexibility to integrate with other existing systems. ConclusionImproving data quality, timeliness and flexibility will provide reliable and valid injury estimates, and increase the usefulness of these surveys for surveillance and prevention of farm injuries.