Animal scientist part of $9.3 million health effort

Amber Adams-Progar, Dairy Management Specialist with the WSU Department of Animal Sciences, is part of a multi-university team working to prevent illness and injury in the farming, fishing and forestry industries in the Pacific Northwest

Amber Adams-Progar,  Dairy Management Specialist
Amber Adams-Progar, Dairy Management Specialist

The five-year, joint WSU-University of Washington project is funded by a $9.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Adams-Progar is leading efforts to identify current dairy cattle handling training programs on Washington dairies, gauge their effectiveness, and help design training programs to further minimize dairy employee injuries related to cattle handling. The dairy portion of the grant is for $750,000 over five years.

“The ultimate goal is to determine which types of dairy cattle training programs have the greatest impact on dairy employee learning and safety, so we can then design dairy cattle training programs that are not only educational, but are also practical and easily accessible,” she said. “My input will help ensure that training recommendations are relevant and feasible for Washington dairy farms.”

Adams-Progar’s expertise in animal behavior will help the research team monitor animal learning as well as employee learning.

“I am very passionate about this project,” she says.

The collaboration on the grant is with the Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center at the University of Washington.