Project Type: Core Research

Project Description: This study addresses the heightened need for information regarding the ways youths working on North Carolina farms make decisions regarding the hazards of working in agriculture. It is designed as a pilot project to lay the groundwork for a longer-term project that assesses the occupational risks facing young farm workers throughout the U.S. South. Using Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Procedures (e.g. open-ended interviewing, focus groups, social and cultural mapping), project staff are collecting data from African-American, Latino, and White males and females under the age of 18 who are working on farms, as well as from knowledgeable individuals who work with young women and men on the farm. Data collected includes probing about working and living conditions, risks of occupational injury/illness, and the social contexts of injuries and illnesses, etc. Group interviews and other methods are used to flesh out data collected in open-ended interviews. Data will be analyzed by post-coding for SPSS and with the use of a text analysis program, searching for key themes to use in constructing hypotheses for the larger, multi-state project.

Project Accomplishments:

Annual Report 2003

Annual Report 2004