Implementing the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act - Fiscal Year 2013 Tenth Annual Report March 1, 2014 ------- Table 1 PRIA Funded Pesticide Safety Education and Pesticide Worker Protection Activities in FY 2013 National Association of State Departments of Agriculture Research Foundation (NASDARF) Cooperative Agreement Part 1 - $320,000 Part 2 - $500,000 Part 1 PRIA funds support a cooperative agreement between EPA and NASDARF. Under the cooperative agreement, NASDARF, is working to enhance Pesticide Safety Programs to reduce risks of pesticide poisonings and injuries in human community, while recognizing the importance of the appropriate, competent use of pesticides. Certification of applicators, pesticide worker protection, and a trained health care provider community are cornerstone tools for realizing reduced pesticide risks. Regionally, nationally, and internationally, NASDARF: • uses existing coalitions and build new ones (community-based organizations, businesses, educators, researchers, health care providers, regulators, subject matter experts, agricultural retailers); • assesses needs of several "communities" (children, families, workers, handlers, applicators, agricultural retailers, health care providers); • develops practical, strategic, and creative community-based action plans to enhance risk reduction and contain spills; • convenes teams to develop resources, including, but not limited to: workshops, hands-on training, fact sheets, manuals, exams, Web, DVDs, webinars; and; • evaluates and reports the outputs and outcomes. Part 2 PRIA funds provide partial support for state level pesticide applicator safety training (classroom, manuals, online media) to develop competency for existing and potential certified pesticide applicators in using restricted use pesticides safely. The training focuses on a population of applicators (approximately 900,000 commercial and private applicators) who can suffer high exposure and risk themselves, or subject others to unnecessary exposure and risk if not trained to competency standards that help to ensure safe pesticide applications. Through a cooperative agreement with NASDARF, $500,000 in PRIA funds go to state cooperative extension services - approximately $10,000 per state. PRIA funds provide state extension programs with a predictable additional resource to help support their programs and help ensure that pesticide applicators receive adequate initial training, and regular retraining to ensure initial competency and continued competency to use restricted use pesticides. Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) Cooperative Agreement $300,000 PRIA funds supported a variety of the national affiliates of AFOP for safety training for pesticide workers and worker families. This training increases protection for communities that may have a potential for high pesticide exposure. The characteristics of these communities are: high risk, low literacy, non-English speakers, low income, high mobility, and children at risk from take-home exposure PRIA funds are used to help support the following: • Project HOPE (Health and Outreach with Pesticide Education) offers free safety training for farm worker community outreach workers in multiple important agricultural states on how to conduct the required Worker Protection Standard (WPS) pesticide worker safety training. • Project LEAF (Limiting Exposures Around Families) is a training program that provides farm workers, their spouses, and caregivers of farm worker children ------- training on the hazards, prevention and mitigation of take-home pesticide exposure. • Students Action with Farmworkers (SAF) is a program with Duke University that trains interns to conduct interactive pesticide safety education for farm workers and for farm worker families. LA, FL, NC State Public Health Departments Grants $195,000 PRIA funds support capacity development in the state departments of public health in Louisiana, Florida, and North Carolina ($65,000 per state). The goal of the cooperative agreements is to develop a state's capacity to participate in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risk (SENSOR) project, a project to carry out acute pesticide-related illness and injury surveillance activities. The mission of the SENSOR program is to build and maintain occupational illness and injury surveillance capacity within state health departments. NIOSH provides cooperative agreement funding and technical support to state health departments to conduct surveillance on one or more occupational illnesses or injuries. One of the illnesses supported under SENSOR is acute occupational pesticide-related illness and injury. State surveillance work includes the identification, classification and documentation of pesticide poisoning cases. The SENSOR-Pesticides program is valuable for providing depth of detail surrounding reported incidents, as well as for the timely identification of emerging trends involving occupational pesticide exposure. Migrant Clinicians Network Cooperative Agreement $185,000 PRIA funds helps support the Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) project to improve the recognition and management of pesticide poisoning by healthcare providers in the practice setting. This work increases health care provider competency in environmental and occupational health in order to support agricultural worker health and safety. The clinicians, nurses and physician's assistants in the network may be the first and only health care providers for pesticide workers. MCN's Environmental and Occupational Health program is a partnership of multiple clinic systems to train staff on the recognition and management of pesticide poisonings, to introduce the appropriate screening methods to identify exposures, and to describe how to report those incidents to appropriate entities. MCN provides training to hundreds of clinicians and staff throughout the year. In addition to distributing thousands of patient education or clinical training materials, including EPA's Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisonings, MCN has trained or reached over 1,000 clinicians through direct training programs. PRIA funding allows MCN to train and provide technical assistance to these trainees and clinic systems. $1,500,000 Total ------- |