Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety

Director

Marc Schenker

Phone

(530) 752-4050

Fax

(530) 752-5047

Email

agcenter@ucdavis.edu

Website

http://agcenter.ucdavis.edu/home.php

TheAg Center is a multidisciplinary research program at UC Davis that studies and promotes the health and safety of farm workers. Its administrative offices are located one mile south of campus on Old Davis Road, at the Center for Health and Environment.

The center was established in 1990 by the Centers for Disease Control through cooperative agreement with the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety¹ to protect and improve the health and safety of farmers, farmworkers, and consumers in California.

The Ag Center conducted a social study into public perceptions of tractor safety in three California counties. Based on findings they developed recommendation for future research for the national project.
Tractor accidents are a major cause of injury in agriculture, inquiries into the public opinion led to a key understanding to educating the public in regards to tractor safety.

The Ag Center in cooperation with centers at UCLA and UC Berkeley developed the Worker Occupational Safety and Health, Training and Education Program (WOSHTEP) aimed to reduce injury and illness from occupational hazards in agriculture. This program was created in 2002 as a result of a change in workers' compensation policy and is administrated by the Commission on Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation Program.
Current projects include:

• Worker Occupational Safety and Health Specialist Training
  

• Heat Hazards in Agriculture, A Guide for Employers to Carry out Tailgate Training for Workers
  

• Small Business Resources http://www.dir.ca.gov/chswc/woshtep.html, andhttp://www.lohp.org/Projects/WOSH/WOSH_smbusres.html
  

• Young Worker Health and Safety Project http://www.dir.ca.gov/YoungWorker/YoungWorkersMain.html, http://www.lohp.org/Projects/Young_Workers/young_workers.html, and http://www.losh.ucla.edu/youngworkers/index.html
  

• Multi-lingual Guide

Ag Connections is NIOSH's seasonal publication of news and updates from all of its agricultural research centers, including the UC Davis' Ag Center. The publication is freely available from the Western Ag Center's site http://www.swagcenter.org/resourcesnewsletters.asp, and their Davis location.

Heat related illnesses are a primary concern for farm worker health. The Ag Center worked with the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation to produce a training guide to facilitate compliance to safe working standards as part of the WOSHTEP program.

JASH is a key publication of the NIOSH in the field of AG health and safety compiling reports from all AG health and safety centers and research projects.

The Ag center is the major contributor to this quarterly publication detailing the latest developments and issues in Ag health and safety. Copies of this publication can be found freely about the Ag Center's office and often include issues relevant to anyone working in an agricultural community such as Davis. Recent as well as archived copies dating back to September 1994 may also be found online at http://agcenter.ucdavis.edu/Newsltr/Newsletters.php

NIOSH Program in Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences
More on WOSHTEP: http://agcenter.ucdavis.edu/Training/woshtep.php