The Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention (SCAHIP) traveled to beautiful Portland, Maine to attend the International Society for Agricultural Safety and Health (ISASH) Conference on June 23rd through June 25th, 2025. Approximately 150 agricultural safety and health professionals and students attended the conference this year. The SCAHIP team provided several presentations and posters throughout the conference that emphasized key focus areas of vector-borne diseases, mental health, and the safe farm steward project. SCAHIP Director, Dr. Wayne Sanderson, was presenter in a panel discussion on Tick-borne Disease Prevention for Worker Populations.  The main topics of Dr. Sanderson’s presentation were 1) the geographic regions and characteristics of the primary disease-carrying insect vectors in the United States.; 2) signs, symptoms, and prognoses of the diseases they carry; 3) the vector exposure risks of agriculture and forestry workers; and 4) methods to prevent exposure.  Panel members plan to develop a workshop on vector-borne diseases at the 2026 ISASH Conference. 

For a panel discussion on Mental Health Challenges in Worker Populations, Dr. Paul Norrod, Dr. Mary MacDonald and Dr. Mindy Ickes provided a presentation titled Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) for Rural Suicide Prevention: Training Evaluation for Mental Health and Healthcare Professionals. Drs. Norrod, MacDonald and Ickes along with Dr. Pipgrass also provided an additional presentation, Building Bridges to Farmer Mental Health – The Development of a Mental Health Navigator Network in Kentucky. 

SCAHIP provides pilot project funding for agricultural safety and health research studies across the Southeast. Dr. Serap Gorucu from the University of Florida was a recipient of 2024 pilot project funding and presented on her pilot project, Musculoskeletal Disorder Risk Assessment of Watermelon Harvesting.

The following posters were also sponsored by SCAHIP.

• Harnessing Agricultural Safety: The Role of Social Media in the Safe Farm Steward Project (Reaves, Vincent, Toole, Namkoong, Song, Byrd)
• Integration of Augmented Reality in Safe Farm Practice Training (Byrd, Vincent, Namkoong, Song)
• Timber-Safe Network- Reduction of Central Appalachian Logging Hazards through the Implementation and Diffusion of a Community Based Logging Operations Safety and Health Resource Network (Fullen, Donnelly, Lundstrom)