The TRACTOR Project: TRACking and MoniToring Occupational Risks in Agriculture Using French Insurance Health Data (MSA)

Abstract

Abstract Objectives A vast data mining project called ‘TRACking and moniToring Occupational Risks in agriculture’ (TRACTOR) was initiated in 2017 to investigate work-related health events among the entire French agricultural workforce. The goal of this work is to present the TRACTOR project, the challenges faced during its implementation, to discuss its strengths and limitations and to address its potential impact for health surveillance. Methods Three routinely collected administrative health databases from the National Health Insurance Fund for Agricultural Workers and Farmers (MSA) were made available for the TRACTOR project. Data management was required to properly clean and prepare the data before linking together all available databases. Results After removing few missing and aberrant data (4.6% values), all available databases were fully linked together. The TRACTOR project is an exhaustive database of agricultural workforce (active and retired) from 2002 to 2016, with around 10.5 million individuals including seasonal workers and farm managers. From 2012 to 2016, a total of 6 906 290 individuals were recorded. Half of these individuals were active and 46% had at least one health event (e.g. declared chronic disease, reimbursed drug prescription) during this 5-year period. Conclusions The assembled MSA databases available in the TRACTOR project are regularly updated and represent a promising and unprecedent dataset for data mining analysis dedicated to the early identification of current and emerging work-related illnesses and hypothesis generation. As a result, this project could help building a prospective integrated health surveillance system for the benefit of agricultural workers.