Parents' safety beliefs and childhood agricultural injury

Background This study examined potential associations between parental safety beliefs and children's chore assignments or risk of agricultural injury. Methods Analyses were based on nested case–control data collected by the 1999 and 2001 Regional Rural Injury Study‐II (RRIS‐II) surveillance efforts. Cases (n = 425, reporting injuries) and controls (n = 1,886, no injuries; selected using incidence density sampling) were persons younger than 20 years of age from Midwestern agricultural households. A causal model served as the basis for multivariate data analysis. Results Decreased risks of injury (odds ratio [OR] and 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were observed for working‐aged children with “moderate,” compared to “very strict” parental monitoring (0.60; 0.40–0.90), and with parents believing in the importance of physical (0.80; 0.60–0.95) and cognitive readiness (0.70, 0.50–0.90, all children; 0.30, 0.20–0.50, females) when assigning new tasks. Parents' safety beliefs were not associated with chore assignments. Conclusions Parents' safety beliefs were associated with reduced risk of childhood agricultural injury; the association was not mediated by chore assignments. Am. J. Ind. Med. Am. J. Ind. Med. 52:724–733, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.