Occupational agricultural injuries among the preadolescent workers of West Bengal, India

Agricultural injuries are an important factor in mortality and morbidity for populations of preadolescents globally. Working preadolescents in agricultural sector are exposed to occupational risks and injury in India.

This study mainly assesses the nature of injuries among the preadolescent agricultural workers of West Bengal, India.

The survey was done by collecting the data on agricultural injuries from the Hooghly district of West Bengal. The injury data for 7 years between years 2010 and 2016 were collected by conducting a survey and personal interviews with the victims. The questionnaire-based approach was used for data collection information on the injury characteristics.

The agricultural injury incident rate was 8.99 (male) and 7.89 (female) per 1000 workers/year. The leading causes of farm injuries were hand tools (65.7%). The most frequently involved tools were spades and sickles. The main cause of hand tool injuries was repetitive work, which lead to fatigue and slippage of hand tools from the hand. The study indicated that preadolescent workers are highly prone to injuries in their occupation, mostly affecting the toes (27.8% and 26.3%) and fingers (24.8% and 25%) in both male and female preadolescents, which consequently affected their health, productivity and work performance.

This study concludes that (1) agricultural injuries affecting different body parts such as toes, fingers, feet and ankles. (2) Occurrence of injuries was much higher among males than females. (3) Hand tools accounted for the majority of injuries followed by farm machinery. (4) Cut injuries are the main ones followed by lacerations, abrasions, sprains and contusions.