Women in Agriculture: Risks for Occupational Injury within the Contexts of Role, and Haddon's Injury Model.

This paper examines exposure to occupational injury producing events among women within the context of role and Haddon’s Injury Model. According to the 1998 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 23 % of farm operators and managers and 19 % of farm workers were female. Until recently few studies have focused on occupational injury in farm women. Sociologists suggest that contributing factors may be the gendered division of labor on farms and the invisibility of farm women’s work. This gendered division of labor is culturally mediated and influences the types of farm tasks performed and subsequent exposure to agents of injury. Role, commodity and economics all influence the number and types of farm tasks. Women on farms are exposed to a multitude of biologic, chemical, physical, and mechanical agents while performing farm tasks. Whether these exposures result in an injury outcome is dependent upon factors intrinsic to the individual (host), a catalyst that produces the outcome (agent), and external factors (environment). Research to date has focused on the injury event. There is a lack of studies examining both the pre-event phase, and the interaction between host, agent, and environment among women in agriculture