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An interdisciplinary research team is conducting a study of injuries caused by farm machines in the prairie region of Canada. The study will be conducted on a population of 600 case subjects and 600 age- and sex-matched control subjects. Case subjects are agricultural workers who have experienced a serious occupational injury caused by a farm machine, while control subjects are agricultural workers who have been exposed to farm machinery but have not experienced any serious occupational injury.

This paper describes the sequence of events used to collect the data for both case and control subjects. The data-collection process consists of three questionnaires. The first is a technician-administered questionnaire that gathers information about the persons demographics, health characteristics, and farm characteristics. The second questionnaire is self-administered and gathers a detailed farm machinery-exposure history and information on the persons attitude toward safety practices. An engineer administers the third questionnaire on-site. This final questionnaire is designed to obtain a greater understanding of the circumstances related to the injury event and to collect detailed information pertaining to the machine involved. The on-site inspection will allow evaluation of the machine with respect to current safety standards (ASAE, ISO, SAE, and CSA) to determine the effectiveness of machines designed to current standards in preventing injuries, as compared to machines not designed to these standards.

Some challenges that have already been encountered are also discussed, including the assessment of the maintenance of the machine and the definition of a case.