Occupational hazards to the health of professional gardeners

Abstract

Professional gardening is a broad occupation that involves a wide range of tasks. Gardeners confront an equally wide variety of physical, chemical, biological and psychosocial hazards in their workplace. Consequently, occupational injuries and mortality are unfortunately common. The aim of this brief review is to collate and summarise the main hazards of gardening, their health effects and control measures. The diversity and size of gardeners’ occupational exposures to the hazards outlined in this paper highlight some of the underlying causes of their increased risk of occupational injury or death. The risk can be reduced in many cases by ensuring appropriate protective strategies are adopted. Other ways through which the burden of occupational injury and mortality can be minimised are introduced and discussed in this paper.

Keywords:

• exposure
• occupational hazards
• occupational hygiene

Acknowledgement

L.D.K. is supported by an NHMRC Early Career (Australian Public Health) Fellowship (APP103 6620).