The Study results from the preliminary analysis of project Year 1 and 2 are below:

Sample and Participant Exposure to Hazard:

The sample was 67% male. Subjects ages ranged from age 20-51 years; 90% were between ages 20-26.

Students enrolled in teacher certification programs comprised 25% percent of the sample, with the remainder in a variety of programs including agricultural economics, community public service, leadership, and agribusiness.

While many students had not lived or worked on farms, slightly over 84% report visiting farms of friends and/or family members.

Self “Report Surveillance Data: Farm and Rural Life Experience (FRLE) Measure:

• 32% reported a tractor overturn involving self, family, or friend (11% of whom were the study subjects).
• 6% reported a highway MV and farm equipment collision for self/family/friend, with 69% involving study subjects.
• 32% reported a self/family/friend head injury from a fall, 38% of which were to the subjects, with ATV, motorcycle, horseback riding falls most prevalent.
• 62% of the sample reported a temporary hearing loss to self/family/friend from exposure to loud noise;
• 44 (15%) reported permanent hearing loss from loud noise.
• 23% reported an injury that resulted in financial loss, with 19% of those experiencing that loss personally.

Intervention Effectiveness

Statistically significant increases in the TTS scores were found for intervention students compared to the controls as measured by the TTS.

A GLM composite analysis that pooled total scores across the thinking and talking portions of the TTS found that the treatment group (M = 27.99) scored significantly higher (p < .05) than the controls (M = 23.05)

The GLM procedure also found a significant interaction effect for both treatment and control groups. Students who lived or worked on a farm scored higher, regardless of being an agriculture or non-agricultural major.

Thinking and talking about farm safety practices and the economic impact of farm injuries on individuals, families, and communities are precursors to behavioral intentions and behavior change. (Prochaska, 1993, Prochaska & Velicer, 1997).

Knowledge of Farm Safety and Economics

Results for the Farm Safety & Economics (FSE) measure mirrored results for the TTS attitude and behavioral intention measure. Statistically significant increases in the knowledge of the economic consequences and social costs of injury and the cost effectiveness of preventative measures were found for intervention students compared to the controls (pre M= 9.45, post M= 16.25).

A GLM composite analysis that pooled total scores on the FSE found that the treatment group (M = 18) scored significantly higher (p < .05) than the controls (M =14) with a significant interaction effect for both groups. Students who did not live or work on a farm scored higher, regardless of being an agriculture or non-agricultural major.

Discussion & Implications of Findings:

Data show many pre-career professional rural youth leaders have experiences with such injuries regardless of whether or not they have lived or worked on farms.

Follow up interviews reveal these future teachers and youth leaders are agricultural safety advocates.

The pre-career teachers and other community youth leaders trained in EOP who will have contact with at-risk youth and adult farmers have acquired increased safety awareness that informs a sense of responsibility as change agents in the rural communities in which they work following graduation. Each social studies teacher, for example, in a rural school may have upwards of 100 students each day, and thus have enormous potential to promote agricultural and rural safety in the schools in which they will teach or the communities in which they will work.