Work Safety Climate, Safety Behaviors, and Occupational Injuries of Youth Farmworkers in North Carolina

Abstract

Objectives. The aims of this project were to describe the work safety climate and the association between occupational safety behaviors and injuries among hired youth farmworkers in North Carolina (n = 87).

Methods. We conducted personal interviews among a cross-sectional sample of youth farmworkers aged 10 to 17 years.

Results. The majority of youths reported that work safety practices were very important to management, yet 38% stated that supervisors were only interested in “doing the job quickly and cheaply.” Few youths reported appropriate work safety behavior, and 14% experienced an injury within the past 12 months. In bivariate analysis, perceptions of work safety climate were significantly associated with pesticide exposure risk factors for rewearing wet shoes (P = .01), wet clothes (P = .01), and shorts (P = .03).

Conclusions. Youth farmworkers perceived their work safety climate as being poor. Although additional research is needed to support these findings, these results strengthen the need to increase employer awareness to improve the safety climate for protecting youth farmworkers from harmful exposures and injuries.

Agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries in the United States, with the highest prevalence of potentially hazardous workplace exposures.¹ Despite a decline in the number of total work-related fatalities and work injuries over the past 2 years, the agriculture sector recorded the highest fatality rate of any industry sector in 2012 at rate of 22.1 (per 100 000 full-time employees).² Statistics on the number of youth farmworker injuries and fatalities are not publicly available. However, work-related fatal injuries disproportionally affect youths in agriculture. From 1998 to 2002, the US Department of Labor reported that the overall number of work fatalities declined for other age groups, yet fatal work injuries involving youths younger than 16 years nearly doubled, with the majority of deaths occurring among youths employed as agricultural workers.^2,3

Regulations in the United States governing working conditions for minors provide less protection for children employed in agricultural than for those employed in nonagricultural industries.^4,5 Under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, minors who are at least 16 years old are allowed to perform any job on the farm including hazardous duties (e.g., operating a tractor, feed grinder, chain saw, and earthmoving equipment); youths aged 12 and 13 years can be employed outside school hours and, in some cases, children aged as young as 10 years can hand-harvest crops with parental consent.⁵ Latino farmworker youths have been reported to begin working in agriculture in early adolescence,⁶ even though some reports have observed children aged as young as 4 or 5 years working with their parents.^7,8 The number of youth farmworkers in the United States is difficult to establish. In 1998, the US General Accounting Office reported an estimated 169 000 to 200 000 youths working in migrant agricultural jobs.^6,9 However, undocumented estimates as high as 500 000 youth agricultural workers have been reported.^10,11

Youth farmworkers represent a vulnerable work group. Many are exposed to dangerous work conditions, receive little pay, migrate from place to place looking for work, and often perform duties similar to those of their farmworker parents.¹² For 2001 to 2002, the National Agricultural Worker Study reported that farmworker youths made up approximately 7% of all farmworkers, were predominately male, were aged between 14 and 17 years, and lived in poverty.¹³ Agricultural occupational exposures that youth farmworkers commonly encounter include physical hazards, such as working with sharp tools, equipment, machinery and transportation; environmental exposure hazards, such as pesticides, heat and sun exposure, insect bites, and poisonous plants; and ergonomic hazards, including heavy lifting, awkward positions, and repetitive motions.¹⁴ In addition, psychological stress hazards include pressure to work fast without breaks, sexual harassment, and lack of job control.^15–17

WORK SAFETY CLIMATE

The concept of work safety climate was introduced approximately 35 years ago by Zohar to describe workers’ perceptions of how employers value safety of their workplace environment.¹⁸ Work safety climate is under the umbrella of organizational climate, which provides a way of identifying characteristics associated with high or low injury rates among employers.^18–20 In a review of the safety literature, Zohar¹⁸ identified good organizational work characteristics of work safety climate among employers including having strong management support and commitment to safety, emphasis on worker safety training, regular and open communication, safety promotion, environmental control, good housekeeping, and a stable workforce.¹⁸

Analyses that have examined work safety climate and its association with occupational safety and injury among various workplace settings and subgroup work populations include construction,^19–22 poultry processing,²³ manufacturing,²⁴ lone workers,²⁵ retail,²⁶ firefighting,²⁷ oil rigging,^28,29 and farmworkers.^30,31 Recent research by Arcury et al.³⁰ among adult migrant farmworkers (n = 300), identified statistically significant associations between lower work safety climate scores with musculoskeletal discomfort and those working while injured or ill.³⁰ There has been no published research that has evaluated work safety climate among youth farmworkers. The purpose of this study was to describe work safety climate among hired youth farmworkers in North Carolina and to determine the association between work safety climate and occupational safety behaviors and injuries.

METHODS

This project was a collaboration of Center for Worker Health, Wake Forest School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Brody School of Medicine, Department of Public Health, and the Farmworker Advocacy Network.

All youth farmworkers in this study were aged 10 to 17 years and employed in farm work in North Carolina. The investigators worked with collaborating organizations that provide health, social, and educational services to farmworkers and farmworker families to identify and recruit youth interviewers and potential participants. Youth interviewers were introduced to individual youth farmworkers and farmworker families by collaborators where youth farmworkers were considered to reside. All participants gave signed informed assent; when available, participants’ parents gave signed consent for their children to participate.

Data Collection

We collected data from a cross-sectional survey of youth farmworkers from April to November 2013. The survey instrument included items taken from an existing questionnaire developed primarily to evaluate agricultural work-related injuries among rural California farm youths.³² The investigators developed additional scales and items. The questions included items on participants’ personal and work characteristics, perceived safety and risk, safety, risk behaviors, and occupational injuries. The investigators reviewed a draft questionnaire and pretested it with young adults (aged 18–21 years) who had worked as farmworkers as youths. Native Spanish speakers familiar with immigrant farmworker dialect used predominantly in North Carolina translated the questionnaire into Spanish.

All interviewers were native Spanish-speaking youths bilingual in English who had experience conducting farmworker interviews and with working with Latino youths. Interviewers were trained during a 1-day training that included human participant protection and ethics, participant recruitment, participant selection, and data collection procedures. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish, depending on respondents’ preference, and took approximately 45 minutes to complete. Survey questions included information on demographics, work history, work environment occupational safety requirements, physical injuries, and symptoms. Participants were given a $25 incentive for completing the interview.

Measures

Youth farmworkers were asked to report their work activities and hours worked in farm work in the past week. We evaluated work safety climate by using participant’s responses to the 10-item Perceived Safety Climate Scale previously used by Gillen et al.¹⁹ Scores from the work safety climate scale were reported for 9 of the items using a Likert format (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree) with statements about management’s concern for safety activities. Responses were collapsed to agree (1) and disagree (0) and summed. The score range was 0 to 9 for each individual participant. The mean score for the 9-item scale for this project was 4.2 (SD = 2.2). The Cronbach α for the scale was 0.79. A higher safety score indicates a safer work environment perceived by youth farmworkers. The tenth remaining question item included a statement on perception related to how much supervisors seemed to care about safety. This is reported separately and included 3 response categories: (1) supervisors could do more to make my job safe, (2) supervisors do as much as possible to make my job safe, and (3) supervisors are only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply.

Occupational safety behavior questions included dichotomous responses to wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) in the past week, including any type of hat, work gloves, rain suit, plastic trash bag, bandana, and protective suit. Rain suits or plastic trash bags were typically worn as barriers to avoid contact with nicotine when workers were harvesting or topping tobacco. Questions on potential pesticide risk exposures included whether participants worked in any of the following: wet shoes, wet clothes, short-sleeved or sleeveless shirt, did not wear a shirt, shorts, sandals or went barefoot, and rewore work clothes without washing. A final measure of pesticide safety was the number of times youth farmworkers washed their hands at work with soap per day (in the categories 0, 1–2, and 3 or more).

We assessed measures of occupational injuries and pain among youth farmworkers by asking participants whether they had experienced musculoskeletal injury, trauma, or dermatological injury at work in the past 12 months. Items included musculoskeletal pain in the shoulder, wrist, knee, or ankle; trauma from a cut, burn, or eye injury; and dermatological injuries of sunburn or rash. For each injury, additional information included whether the participant received medical care for the injury, and whether the participant missed at least a half-day of work or school because of the injury.

We collected information about personal characteristics on gender, age, country of birth, Hispanic ethnicity, languages spoken, currently attending school, years of school completed, and state of residence. Lastly, participants indicated if they lived with both parents, mother only, father only, other older relatives, or alone.

Data Analysis

We computed frequency counts and percentages for all of these measures. We computed the mean, standard deviation, and Cronbach’s α value for the perceived work safety climate summary score. Because of small cell sizes, and to compare differences between scores,¹⁹ we collapsed the work safety climate scale into 2 binary categories (1 = 0–4; 2 = 5–9).

We performed bivariate analyses to evaluate associations between the 2-category work safety climate scale with occupational safety behavior and injury measures by using the χ² or Fisher exact test, where appropriate. Associations were considered statistically significant at the P < .05 level. All analyses were conducted with SAS version 9.3 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).

RESULTS

This study included 87 youth participants, 62.1% male and 37.9% female. Participant personal and work characteristics, safety equipment behavior, pesticide exposure risks, and work injuries are reported in Table 1.

TABLE 1—

Personal Characteristics, Crops Worked, Work Tasks, Personal Protective Equipment Used in the Past Week of Farm Work, Pesticide Exposure Risks, and Work Injuries in the Past 12 Months Among Youth Farmworkers: North Carolina, 2013

Variables	No. (%)
Gender
Male	54 (62.1)
Female	33 (37.9)
Age, y
10–13	23 (26.4)
14–15	34 (39.1)
16–17	30 (34.5)
Country of birth
United States	68 (78.2)
Mexico	16 (18.4)
Guatemala	1 (1.2)
Honduras	2 (2.3)
Hispanic or Latino ethnicity	78 (89.7)
Race
White	6 (6.9)
Black, African American, or Negro	5 (5.8)
American Indian or Alaska Native	4 (4.6)
Mixed/Mestizo	72 (82.8)
Languages spoken
English	69 (80.2)
Spanish	74 (86.1)
Indigenous	3 (3.5)
Currently attending school	65 (74.7)
Years of school completed
3–5	9 (10.3)
6–8	37 (42.5)
9–12	41 (47.1)
State of residence
North Carolina	77 (88.5)
Florida	6 (6.9)
Texas	2 (2.3)
Virginia	1 (1.2)
None	1 (1.2)
Living situation
With mother and father	39 (44.8)
With mother only	33 (37.9)
With father only	4 (4.6)
With other older relative	9 (10.3)
Alone	0 (0.0)
Hours worked per week doing farm work
6–20	29 (33.4)
21–40	22 (25.2)
41–72	36 (41.4)
Crops worked
Tobacco	40 (46.0)
Berries	25 (28.7)
Sweet potatoes	25 (28.7)
Cucumbers	7 (8.1)
Tomatoes	5 (5.8)
Green peppers	3 (3.5)
Peas	3 (3.5)
Chili peppers	2 (2.3)
Peanuts	2 (2.3)
Green beans	2 (2.3)
Melons	1 (1.2)
Apples	1 (1.2)
Work tasks
Harvesting	44 (50.6)
Topping	32 (36.8)
Loading	32 (36.8)
Weeding	21 (24.1)
Planting	13 (14.9)
Cultivating	12 (13.8)
Irrigating	10 (11.5)
Barning	2 (2.3)
Worked with pesticides	0 (0.0)
Personal protective equipment used in the past week of farm work
Hat	66 (75.9)
Work gloves	55 (63.2)
Rain suit	25 (28.7)
Bandana	8 (9.2)
Plastic/trash bag	5 (5.8)
Protective suit	3 (3.5)
Pesticide exposure risks
Wet shoes	47 (54.0)
Wet clothes	45 (51.7)
Short sleeves or sleeveless	36 (41.4)
Shorts	16 (18.4)
Rewearing clothes without washing	13 (14.9)
Sandals or barefoot	10 (11.5)
Not wearing a shirt	6 (6.9)
Washed hands with soap per day, no. times
0	36 (42.9)
1–2	27 (32.1)
≥ 3	21 (25.0)
Work injuries in the past 12 mo
Any musculoskeletal pain	47 (54.0)
Shoulder pain	29 (33.3)
Wrist pain	20 (23.0)
Knee pain	6 (6.9)
Ankle pain	5 (5.8)
Any trauma	53 (60.9)
Cut	49 (56.3)
Burn	8 (9.2)
Eye	1 (1.2)
Any dermatological injury	63 (70.4)
Sunburn	60 (69.0)
Rash	12 (13.8)

Note. Some crops and tasks may have been performed more than 1 time. The sample size was n = 87.

The most common PPE used by youths in the past week of farm work was a hat, worn by 75.9%. In addition, 63.2% wore gloves, 28.7% wore a rain suit, 9.2% wore a bandana, 5.8% wore a plastic trash bag, and 3.5% reported wearing a protective suit. For potential pesticide exposure risks, 54.0% worked in wet shoes and 51.7% worked in wet clothes. More than 41% wore short-sleeved shirts. Nearly one fifth (18.4%) wore shorts, 11.5% wore sandals or worked barefoot, and 6.9% wore no shirt. Almost 15% rewore work clothes without washing them. More than 42% did not wash their hands while at work.

Self-reported injuries in the past 12 months included 54.0% of youths reporting any type of musculoskeletal pain, 33.3% reporting shoulder pain, 23.0% wrist pain, 6.9% knee pain, and 5.8% ankle pain in the past 12 months. Among those reporting trauma, almost 61.0% experienced some type of trauma, with “cut” being the most frequently reported (56.3%); 9.2% reported a burn and 1.2% an eye injury. A large majority of youth participants (72.4%) reported some type of dermatological injury, with sunburn being the most frequent (69.0%), followed by skin rash (13.8%).

Perceived Work Safety Climate

The mean work safety climate score was 4.2, which was below the median score of 4.5 (Table 2). Most participants (70.1%) agreed with the statement “work safety practices were very important to management.” More than 40% agreed that workers “were made aware of dangerous work practices or conditions.” Nearly 25% regularly received praise for safe conduct; 40.2% received instructions when hired. However, only 8.1% attended regular safety meetings, 32.2% reported that proper safety equipment was always available, 75.9% reported that they had almost total control over personal safety, and 55.2% stated that taking risks was not a part of their job.

TABLE 2—

Individual Work Safety Climate Items and Work Safety Climate Score Among Youth Farmworkers: North Carolina, 2013

Work Safety Climate Items	Agree, No. (%)
Workers’ safety practices are very important to management.	61 (70.1)
Workers are regularly made aware of dangerous work practices or conditions.	35 (40.2)
Workers are regularly praised for safe conduct.	21 (24.1)
Workers receive instructions on safety when hired.	35 (40.2)
Workers attend regular safety meetings.	7 (8.1)
Proper safety equipment is always available.	28 (32.2)
Workers have almost total control over personal safety.	66 (75.9)
Taking risks is not a part of my job.	48 (55.2)
The possibility of being injured at work in the next 12 mo is very likely.a	20 (23.0)
Summary scoreb
How much do supervisors seem to care about your safety?
They are only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply.	33 (37.9)
They could do more to make my job safe.	36 (41.4)
Supervisors do as much as possible to make my job safe.	18 (20.7)

Note. The sample size was n = 87.

^aReverse scored.

^bMean = 4.2 (SD = 2.2); α = 0.79. Values ranged from 0-9 with a median score of 4.5; a higher score indicates better work safety climate.

The possibility of being injured at work in the next 12 months was reported by 23.0% of participants as “very likely.” When asked about work organization and perception of how much supervisors seemed to care about work safety, 20.7% reported that their supervisor did as much as possible to make the job safe. More than 41% stated that supervisors could do more to make their job safe, and 37.9% said that supervisors are only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply.

Bivariate Analysis

Work safety climate score had a significant association with wearing a hat (P = .01; Table 3). Youths’ perceptions of how supervisors cared about their safety had near marginal significant associations (P = .08) with wearing a hat, wearing a rain suit, and using more than 1 type of PPE. Almost all (94.4%) of those who stated that their supervisor did as much as possible to make the job safe wore a hat, compared with 75.0% who felt the supervisor could do more to make the job safe, and 66.7% of those who felt their supervisor was only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply. The comparable percentages for those who wore a rain suit were 38.9%, 36.1%, and 15.2%.

TABLE 3—

Association of Work Safety Climate With Personal Protective Equipment Used in the Past Week of Farm Work Among Youth Farmworkers: North Carolina, 2013

		Hat		Work Gloves		Rain Suit		Used 1 or More
Work Safety Climate	No.	No. (%)	P	No. (%)	P	No. (%)	P	No. (%)	P
Work safety climate score			< .001		.82		.27		.11
1–4	53	35 (66.0)		34 (64.2)		13 (24.5)		30 (56.6)
5–9	34	31 (91.2)		21 (61.8)		12 (35.3)		25 (75.5)
How much do supervisors seem to care about your safety?			.08		.2		.08		.08
They are only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply.	33	22 (66.7)		17 (51.5)		5 (15.2)		16 (48.5)
They could do more to make my job safe.	36	27 (75.0)		25 (69.4)		13 (36.1)		26 (72.2)
They do as much as possible to make my job safe.	18	17 (94.4)		13 (72.2)		7 (38.9)		13 (72.2)

Note. The sample size was n = 87.

Work safety climate score was inversely associated with pesticide exposure risks to youth farmworkers for those reporting working in wet shoes (P = .01), working in wet clothes (P = .01), wearing shorts (P = .03), and more than 1 exposure risk (P = .02; Table 4). The association with rewearing soiled clothes did not reach statistical significance (P = .06). How youths perceived their supervisors cared about their safety was significantly (P = .03) associated with wearing wet shoes: 66.7% of those who stated that supervisors were only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply reported wearing wet shoes. More than 55% of those who stated that supervisors could do more to make the job safe wore wet shoes, and 27.8% of those who stated that their supervisor did as much as possible to make the job safe wore wet shoes.

TABLE 4—

Association of Work Safety Climate With Pesticide Exposure Risks Among Youth Farmworkers: North Carolina, 2013

		Wet Shoes		Wet Clothes		Short-Sleeved Shirt		Shorts		Rewear Soiled Clothes		1 or More Exposure Risk
Work Safety Climate	No.	No. (%)	P	No. (%)	P	No. (%)	P	No. (%)	P	No. (%)	P	No. (%)	P
Work safety climate score			.01		.01		.63		.03		.06		.01
1–4	53	35 (66.0)		33 (62.3)		23 (43.4)		6 (11.3)		11 (20.8)		37 (69.8)
5–9	34	12 (35.3)		12 (35.3)		13 (38.2)		10 (29.4)		2 (5.9)		15 (44.1)
How much do supervisors seem to care about your safety?			.03		.32		.63		.88		.4		.31
They are only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply.	33	22 (66.7)		20 (60.6)		12 (36.4)		6 (18.2)		5 (15.2)		23 (69.7)
They could do more to make my job safe.	36	20 (55.6)		18 (50.0)		15 (41.7)		6 (16.7)		7 (19.4)		20 (55.6)
They do as much as possible to make my job safe.	18	5 (27.8)		7 (38.9)		9 (50.0)		4 (22.2)		1 (5.6)		9 (50.0)

Note. The sample size was n = 87.

When we determined relationships between work safety climate scores and the number of times hands were washed per day (data not shown), we identified a statistically significant relationship between perception of how much supervisors seemed to care about workers’ safety and the number of times per day hands were washed with soap (P = .05). A plurality (47.2%) of those who stated that supervisors were only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply did not wash their hands, 47.2% of those who stated that supervisors could do more to make the job safe did not wash their hands, and 5.6% of those who stated that that their supervisor did as much as possible to make the job safe did not wash their hands. When we examined relationships between work safety climate scores and injuries, experiencing a trauma was statistically significant (P = .01), such that 71.7% of those with a score of 1 to 4 reported a trauma, and 44.1% of those with a score of 5 to 9 reported a trauma.

DISCUSSION

These findings are important because they delineate the level of work safety climate among youth farmworkers. They also document that low perceptions of work safety climate are associated with workplace safety behavior. Although a majority of participants reported personal safety as being important to management, most youth farmworkers perceived their work safety climate as being poor. Few workers reported receiving praise for working safely, receiving proper instructions on how to do the job when hired, or being provided with proper PPE when doing their job. Nearly half of workers felt that supervisors could do more to make their job safe, and nearly 38% felt supervisors were only interested in doing the job quickly. Significantly, few youths reported using appropriate safety behavior while working and nearly 14% reported having experienced an injury within the past 12 months, with a majority experiencing sunburn, cuts, and musculoskeletal pain.

Other studies examining work safety climate among youth farmworkers are not available. However, in a work safety climate study among adult Latino farmworkers in North Carolina (n = 300), Arcury et al.³⁰ identified more than 70% of workers who stated that safe work practices were important to their employers, and 60% reported that their employers informed them about dangerous work practices. Youths in our study reported somewhat similarly: 70% identified that safety practices were very important to management, but fewer (40%) reported regularly being made aware of dangerous conditions. In the adult farmworker study,³⁰ 54% reported that their employers did not praise them often for working safely, compared with 24% of youths in this study. Fewer farmworker youths (40%) reported receiving safety instructions when newly hired, compared with adult farmworkers (65%). Also, fewer youth farmworkers reported proper safety equipment being always available (32% vs 85% of adult farmworkers) and far fewer youths reported that taking risks was not a part of their job (55% vs 95%).³⁰ Youths reported a lower possibility of being injured within the next year (23%) than adult farmworkers (95%).

The same study found that fewer than half (41%) of the adult workers perceived their employers as doing as much as possible about safety, with 33.0% stating that the grower could do more to make their job safe, and 26% reporting that the grower was most concerned about getting the work done quickly and cheaply. Our study reported similarly, although a much higher percentage of youths reported supervisors were only interested in doing the job fast and cheaply (37.9%) and they could do more to make their job safe (41.4%). In a separate study, Whalley et al.³¹ found significant associations between low safety climate perception and bosses’ safety concerns, and being only interested in doing the job quickly and cheaply among adult migrant farmworkers (n = 255). By comparison, our study identified that work safety concerns consistently ranked higher among youth farmworkers than those identified in the adult farmworker studies.^30,31

The associations between work safety climate and PPE used, pesticide exposure risks, and hand washing indicate that youth farmworkers are a vulnerable population who experience increased safety and health risks while working in agriculture. As demonstrated, an inverse relationship between work safety climate score and pesticide exposure risks of those wearing wet shoes, wearing shorts, and working in areas with pesticides were reflective of poor job-appropriate safety behavior. This raises concerns, particularly because a large percentage of youths reported harvesting, topping, or handling tobacco, whereby increasing their health risk from potential pesticide and chemical exposures.^33,34 When handled wet, dermal absorption of pesticides and nicotine can occur, resulting in illness such as green tobacco sickness³⁵ and cognitive and behavioral dysfunction.³⁶ Arcury et al. identified high levels of pesticide exposures among adult farmworkers.³⁴ Sequelae of chronic nicotine exposure may have an adverse impact on a youth’s developing biological system and pose other potential long-term harmful human health effects.^37–39

In addition, the association between work safety climate and less frequent hand washing emphasizes a higher risk of exposure. Contrary to our findings, adult farmworkers who reported a positive safety climate were more likely to have increased pesticide safety behavior and were considerably more likely to wash their hands.³¹ Also, in comparison with adult farmworkers, youth farmworkers in this study reported relatively infrequent use of wearing PPE and tended to wear short-sleeved or sleeveless shirts and rewear work clothes more often before washing them.³¹ Again, this demonstrates an increase in risk exposures, which we attribute to a combination of poor work safety climate, behavioral, and possibly socioeconomic factors, which lead to agricultural injuries among youths.

Although there were no significant associations between work safety climate and trauma, a large percentage of youths reported having experienced musculoskeletal pain, cuts, and sunburns. Avoiding workplace injuries of any type should be top concern among any industry, particularly among those that include children. Separate findings of this study published elsewhere identified that a significantly large percentage of youth-age farmworkers reported injuries compared with adult farmworkers.⁴⁰ This may be in part because youth farmworkers are less experienced, receive less safety instructions upon hire, and are paid primarily piece rate compensation, similar to adults, when harvesting crops. McCurdy et al. and Johansson et al. found that adult farmworkers that work piece rate are more likely to disregard safety concerns and experience an increase in injuries,^41,42 reflective of the type of crops that youths are working.⁴⁰ In addition, the piece rate system proves difficult for ensuring employers to prove that at least the applicable minimum wage and overtime pay compensation regulations are being met for workers.⁴³

The high percentage of sunburns reported by youth farmworkers is most likely from a combination of intense sun exposure duration, improper sun protection behavior, and lack of information or support from employers. Although a sunburn may seem fairly insignificant, it can produce acute pain, be extremely uncomfortable, and contribute to long-term health risks.⁴⁴ In addition, repeated overexposure of ultraviolet radiation from the sun at an early age can lead to increased risks of more serious skin conditions including premature aging of the skin and skin cancer.^45,46

Strengths and Limitations

This study has several strengths. It is the first project to our knowledge documenting work safety climate primarily among youth farmworkers. In addition to the study by Whitworth et al., it is one of few studies that recruited primarily Latino youth farmworkers in communities where they lived including children and adolescents that were not enrolled in school.⁴⁷ Also, the types of injuries identified in this study may provide additional insight for further evaluating characteristics associated with work safety climate factors, musculoskeletal injuries, and sun exposure among youth farmworkers. Because it was a cross-sectional study that was primarily descriptive by design, the results of this project should be interpreted with caution.

The relatively small sample of farmworkers in this pilot study was localized to North Carolina, which limits its generalizability to the broader youth Latino farmworkers. However, the demographic characteristics of the sample participants are comparable with other studies and may be representative of youth farmworkers in the southeastern United States. Self-reported data collected from participants may have biased the results by over- or underestimating responses. Nevertheless, all surveys were conducted by trained, youth Latino interviewers, which may have provided an added level of trust and openness for higher-quality survey responses from participants.

Conclusions

These findings contribute to the literature addressing occupational safety among youth agricultural workers, because they describe how work safety climate is related to their safety behavior. At the national level, current efforts are under way to revise the US Environmental Protection Agency Worker Protection Standard to increase protection for agricultural workers by requiring additional measures including prohibiting children younger than 16 years from handling pesticides (with an exemption for family farms). These are necessary, positive steps toward informing and protecting farmworkers and their families from pesticide exposures. Undoubtedly, agriculture is an important industry that requires a significant labor force to maintain its sustainability. However, decisions to improve policies to protect and ensure the safety of youths working in one of the most hazardous industries is justified.^48,49 The concept of work safety climate can play an important role in developing workplace interventions to reduce the incidence and severity of injuries¹⁹ and improving the safety of workers. Additional research on how work safety climate has an impact on occupational behavior and health among youth agricultural workers is an area that is warranted and needs increased attention.