Sep. 1—The director of Bassett Healthcare Network's New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health and the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety was recently recognized at a national conference.
Julie Sorensen was presented the 2022 Safety & Health Researcher award by the Agricultural Safety & Health Council of America for two decades of research and increasing worker safety, according to a media release from Bassett.
"It's always great to be recognized," Sorensen said in the release. "But this award is especially meaningful because it's coming from industry — the very people we are hoping to support.
"I also have to say that if I have been successful to any degree, it is because I work with talented, dedicated people who give 110% every day," she said.
ASHCA chose Sorensen for the overall impact of work throughout her career rather than for a specific achievement, the release said, but, a couple of projects stand out.
Sorensen began New York's rollover protective structures (ROPS) program with Dr. John May in 2007. In New York, tractor rollovers have historically been the most common cause of farm injuries and fatalities, according to the release. Tractor roll bars dramatically reduce the risk, but they needed to be retroactively installed on older tractors that weren't originally sold with the safety devices. The ROPS program assisted farmers with the installation of roll bars.
"The ROPS project spoke to the power of talking to your target audience and understanding the problem from their perspective," Sorensen said. "Very often in public health, we just assume that knowledge is the problem — that people don't know the right thing to do. However, more often than not, people do understand what will keep them healthy or safe — they just experience barriers getting there."
A listening tour revealed that farmers knew about the danger of tractor rollovers, but finding the right roll bar and hardware to fit a particular tractor's year, make and model required time and money.
The program addressed the barriers by creating a hotline that offered to assist with pricing, locating ROPS kits and offsetting costs with a rebate, the release said. A social marketing campaign also emphasized the risk to less-experienced tractor operators, such as young farmhands or to other family members.
Researchers estimate that between 2007 and 2017, the program saved at least ten lives and $4 million.
Years later, Sorensen and the NEC set out to decrease drowning fatalities among New England lobster fishermen, the release said. This time her team found that preconceptions that lifejackets were too cumbersome for hard work were the primary barrier.