Agricultural injuries are an important and understudied category of occupational injuries.
This study estimated the economic burden of agricultural machinery injuries that occurred in Ontario, Canada's largest province, between 1985 and 1996.
Conventional methodology for estimating economic burden, as embodied in a computer program previously developed for this purpose, was applied to hospitalized, nonhospitalized, and fatal agricultural machinery injuries.
The total economic burden of these injuries over the 12-year study period was estimated to be 228.1 million dollars, or 19.0 million dollars annually (1995 Canadian dollars, 3.0% discount rate). By extrapolation, the economic burden of all farm injuries in Canada is estimated to be between 200 and 300 million dollars annually.
Costing information about agricultural injuries provides support for the prioritization and development of injury-control initiatives.