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Disability Awareness and Risk
Education for Farm Youth
Deborah Reed, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Pamela Kidd, Ph.D,
Co-investigator
Funded by the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Grant #R01 CCR414307
(1997-2001)
Abstract
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The prevention of permanent disabilities among farm youth is
often ignored by prevention programs. Rather, mortality
prevention is emphasized, even though this concept is
incongruent to the developmental capacity of many youth. An
innovative demonstration project is proposed which addresses
the prevention of permanent disabilities in a population
known to be at high risk.
At the core of the program are
two types of simulations: a paper-and-pencil narrative
exercise, and a set of physical devices that simulate
disability through experiential learning. Simulations will
focus on three disabilities: amputation, hearing loss, and
long-term effects of chemical exposure. The objective is for
students to increase their knowledge of the long-term
consequences of cumulative and catastrophic injury, better
understand the economic and personal cost of permanent
disability, and make specific injury-reduction attitudinal
and behavioral changes.
The intervention simulations will
be developed in Phase I of the project, with focus groups of
farm youth participating in the process. Phase II involves
testing and implementation. Using a quasi-experimental,
crossover design, 720 ninth grade vocational agricultural
students will be selected from schools in Kentucky,
Mississippi and Iowa. Schools within each state will be
randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Treatment
groups A and B will receive the physical and narrative
simulations in reverse order. In year three, the control group,
as well as a group of migrant and seasonal farm youth, will
receive the simulations. A subsample of youth will be
followed up with on site visits in year three to observe
retention of learning and behavioral changes. Pre- and
post-intervention and follow-up measures will be analyzed
using a repeated measures ANOVA design. Outcome evaluation
will follow NIOSH guidelines and will be based on surveys
and direct observations of hazard reduction behaviors,
effectiveness training variables, and training evaluation
variables.
The benefits of the proposed
project are (1) a focus on disability prevention rather than
global injury prevention; (2) testing different formats for
administering simulations; (3) generalizability of the
results across different states, cultures, and agricultural
commodities; (4) longitudinal follow-up of randomly selected
farm youth to determine the degree to which training is
effective over time.
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