![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090122121909im_/http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/images/line.jpg)
P.
Jones, J.
Nelson and H.
Pirozzoli
NIOSH Education and Information Division
In the
United States, a key organization with responsibility for
distributing information to the agricultural community is
the Cooperative Extension Service (CES). Each State's CES
is basically autonomous - producing publications and developing
educational programs to meet the needs of its citizens. Within
the national CES system, information exchange between individual
states is encouraged and publications from one state are occasionally
reviewed and adapted for use in other states, sometime with
no changes at all. In theory, this seems like a sensible means
of minimizing redundancy while insuring that materials are
pertinent to each state's unique, local conditions. In practice,
however, state specialists seldom have convenient access to
most materials available from other states, so they rely on
familiar materials. The net result is an array of programs
that does not support the development of a coherent national
program. This is especially apparent in relatively small programmatic
areas like agricultural safety.
To promote
the national exchange of health and safety program materials
within CES and allied organizations, NIOSH, under the auspices
of the Agricultural Health Promotion System (AHPS) program,
is supporting development of the National Ag Safety Disc (NASD),
which will contain an extensive compendium of educational
and information resources targeted to support delivery of
programs in county Cooperative Extension Service (CES) offices.
The prototype NASD database
(to be released in October, 1994) will contain over 1,000
health and safety publications from 23 states and three federal
agencies. The publications cover specific health and safety
topics ranging from ATVs to Zoonoses. The collection will
also cover OSHA Standards pertinent to agricultural producers
and information on the EPA Worker Protection Standard. A significant
number of the documents are available in Spanish as well as
English. In addition to CES style documents, NASD also includes
a database of abstracts and ordering information covering
over 500 videos, a NIOSH bibliographic database of over 500
scientific publications concerned with agricultural health
and safety, a resource directory, posters, newspaper articles
and PSA radio scripts.
The
NASD database is intended
to be a central repository of instructional and reference
resources related to safety programming. To find materials
of interest, users will be able to search the database quickly
and easily using hierarchical menus, full-text search and
hyperlink tools. Once information of interest is found, users
will be able to access the material on-screen or print it
on demand. Or they can retrieve an electronic version (WordPerfect
file) and modify it to meet their needs. By putting thc NASD
database in the hands of agricultural health and safety specialists,
NIOSH expects to promote greater national exchange of materials
and consequently to enhance Ag Safety programming within CES
and allied organizations.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090122121909im_/http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/images/line.jpg)
Disclaimer
and Reproduction Information: Information in NASD does not represent
NIOSH policy. Information included in NASD appears by permission
of the author and/or copyright holder. More
NASD Review: 04/2002
This
research abstract was extracted from a portion of the proceedings
of "Agricultural Safety and Health: Detection, Prevention and
Intervention," a conference presented by the Ohio State University
and the Ohio Department of Health, sponsored by the Centers
for Disease Control/National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health.
The
authors noted above are: P. Jones, J. Nelson and H. Pirozzoli,
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
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