Agricultural disability awareness and risk education (AgDARE) for high school students

Objective - Develop and test a farmhealth and injury prevention educational intervention for high school agriculture students. Setting - Twenty one high schools in Kentucky, Iowa, and Mississippi. Methods - A quasiexperimental crossover design was used to test the effectiveness of two sets of instructional materials designed through participatory action research with agriculture teachers and students. Narrative simulations based on farmwork stories and simulations of farm work while students pretended to have a disability were completed in 14 schools (n = 373) over the academic year. Students in seven control schools (n = 417) received no intervention but completed, in the same time frame as students in the treatment schools, demographic surveys and premeasures and post-measures of farm safety attitudes and intent to change safety behaviors. One year after the intervention, 29 students from the treatment group received farmvisits to measure their farm safety behaviors. Results - Students engaged in hazardous work on farms. Thirty two were involved in tractor overturns and 11 had received injuries from rotating power take-off mechanisms. One fourth reported hearing problems, and 21% had respiratory symptoms after working in dusty farm surroundings. Students who completed at least two physical and two narrative simulations of the Agricultural Disability Awareness and Risk Education (AgDARE) curriculum showed statistically significant positive changes in farm safety attitude and intent to change behaviors. Conclusions - Adolescents engage in farm work that places them at risk for injury and illness. The AgDARE curriculum may be an effective and efficient method of teaching farm safety in high school agriculture classes.