AN OCCUPATIONAL-HEALTH AND SAFETY INTERVENTION RESEARCH AGENDA FOR PRODUCTION AGRICULTURE - DOES SAFETY EDUCATION WORK

It is clear that agriculture has not kept pace,vith other hazardous in dustries in reducing its injury rate. For example, between 1960 and 19 90 the work death rate for agriculture decreased only 28% while the wo rk death rates decreased 65% for mining and 55% for construction [Purs chwitz (1992)]. A national conference in Iowa in 1988 came to the forc eful conclusion that ''America's most productive workforce was being s ystematically liquidated by an epidemic of occupational disease and tr aumatic death and injury'' [NCASH (1988)]. In 1991, the nation's top p ublic health officer the U.S. Surgeon General, convened a conference t itled ''FarmSafe 2000-A National Coalition for Local Action,'' to form ally address agricultural safety and health issues. Importantly, confe rees recognized that preventing injury and disease was superior to try ing to rehabilitate people after an injury occurred. But does particip ation in farm safety and health educational programs lead to a reducti on in risk of injury from farm work? Questions are being raised about the value of farm safety and health educational information, campaigns , programs, and related activities. The questions have identified a cr itical gap in the literature of farm safety and health education. Ther e is currently no good evidence demonstrating that farm safety and hea lth education, campaigns, programs, or related activities lead to a re latively stable reduction of risk on the farm. In other words, do farm ers and their families actually put to use, in a relatively permanent or stable manner the educational information regarding elimination, re duction, or control of physical hazards and the modification of work b ehavior that may cause injury? (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.