by University of Illinois Extension

Agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. Each year, vehicles, machinery, environmental hazards and other incidents cause thousands of injuries and hundreds of fatalities. A thorough understanding of the main risks is key to preventing accidents and promoting ag safety.

A research team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I) has developed an interactive platform that allows users to obtain customized information about agricultural injuries. The researchers describe their work in a Journal of Agromedicine  article.

The Agricultural Injury Dashboard allows users to search on a variety of parameters and provides the information as interactive graphs and charts.

“The project started as a tool for extension educators. We wanted to develop something they can use to learn more about the agriculture injuries in their own communities and to compare different regions,” says co-author Salah Issa, Illinois Extension specialist and associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE), part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) and The Grainger College of Engineering at the U of I. “Eventually, we decided to also include search options for researchers, who may have different data demands.”

The Agricultural Injury Dashboard  covers ag injuries in five Midwestern states. It contains tracks for researchers and educators to customize their queries according to specific purposes. The dashboard allows users to search on a variety of parameters and provides the information as interactive graphs and charts.