M.
McDonald and Y.
Cervantes
NIOSH Education and Information Division
The
NURSE
project, established in 1991 through a cooperative agreement
with NIOSH, was designed to examine the scope of occupational
injuries and fatalities in agriculture in two California counties.
NURSE staff engage in a variety of outreach activities and
have produced numerous educational materials in order to set
up and maintain the surveillance system, and to heighten the
community's general awareness of agricultural injuries.
An important
target audience of this work has been children and their families.
Farm work and farm life can be extremely dangerous for children.
Close to 300 children are killed on farms each year across
the country, and over 23,000 are injured. Children who live
or spend time on farms are exposed to many hazards. Bienvenidos
Al Rancho/Welcome to the Farm, a bilingual coloring book,
was designed to help children ages 4-8 learn to recognize
and avoid farm hazards. The Spanish and English coloring book,
which includes a parent/teacher guide and is offered free
to the public, has been a successful educational and outreach
tool. Over 15,000 copies of the coloring book were distributed
from October, 1993, to March, 1994, to a wide range of sectors
involved with children, including farm families, teachers,
community clinics, migrant programs, and law enforcement agencies.
This paper discusses the ways that Bienvenidos Al Rancho/Welcome
to the Farm has functioned as a tool for education and outreach
by examining its publication, promotion and distribution,
and by exploring its popularity. The paper discusses lessons
from work with Bienvenidos Al Rancho/Welcome to the Farm and
suggests how similar efforts can be used to promote agricultural
safety for children.
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 from: M. McDonald, Tulane University,
New Orleans, LA; Y. Cervantes, NURSE Project, California DHS,
Berkeley, CA.
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