Risto Rautiainen
University of Nebraska Medical Center, NE·Public Health & Epidemiology
Farming and ranching are among the work settings where injury and illness are a constant burden for workers and their families. Hazards range from machinery and livestock to dust in barns and the stress of the job.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
agricultural safety
occupational health
agricultural injury
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Track agricultural injury, illness and stress across the seven-state Central States region through ongoing surveillance of injuries, exposures and their costs.
- Study how organic dust and the wider exposome, the full set of environmental exposures a person meets, contribute to lung injury in agricultural workers, and assess respiratory exposures and protection options in poultry production.
- Examine the safety of getting on and off agricultural machinery for aging producers, and the impact of work-related stress among Latino immigrant farmworkers.
- Build a community-based training network for bison worker safety on tribal lands and study safety climate and culture in the cattle feedyard industry.
More about the research
This research center works to measure those harms across a seven-state central U.S. region and turn the findings into practical ways to prevent them.
Why it matters
Farmers, ranchers, agricultural workers and their families in the central U.S. could benefit from better data on injuries, illnesses, exposures and their costs, and from prevention guidance based on it. This includes safer machinery access for older producers, respiratory protection in poultry barns, stress support for Latino immigrant workers and safety training for bison workers on tribal lands.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Nathan Fethke
University of Iowa, IA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Reduce back pain linked to whole-body vibration from long-term tractor use by developing technology to measure and address vibration exposure in Midwest farmers.
Lorann Stallones
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Public Health & Epidemiology
Run an Evaluation & Planning Core that uses the Regional Needs Assessment to steer and evaluate the center's research, outreach and partnerships across Public Health Service Region VIII.
Laura Linnan
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Study risks to mental health and well-being among essential workers, including nurses and physicians, firefighters and childcare workers, using a Total Worker Health framework that combines safety with broader health promotion.
The school
University of Nebraska Medical Center: 20 labs on PI Pages, $657M a year on research, 82 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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