The North American Guidelines for Children's Agricultural Tasks (NAGCAT) were developed to assist parents in assigning developmentally appropriate and safe work for children 7 to 16 years who are working on farms across North America. The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of the standard dissemination strategy with an enhanced, multi-phased, dissemination approach in influencing parents to use/apply NAGCAT when assigning farm work to their children. A multi-site randomized trial was performed. 498 farms in Canada and the United States were enrolled. Multi-phased dissemination activities included the provision of a video, personalized child development information, and supportive telephone calls. Follow-up with all farms occurred during the fall of 2000 in order to assess parental reaction to the guidelines and whether NAGCAT was actually used. Specifically, the follow-up focused upon the perceived effectiveness of the dissemination strategies and differences in the use/application of the guidelines between groups. Baseline comparisons showed that the randomization was effective in achieving balance between the two study arms. Preliminary comparative results suggest that the enhanced approach was effective in increasing farm parents use of and knowledge about NAGCAT. These results have important implications for dissemination of the NAGCAT resources to farm parents.
Learning Objectives: (1) To consider the design of a study aimed at evaluating dissemination of a new parental resource and (2) To discuss the results and implications for childhood agricultural injury prevention.
Keywords: Injury Prevention, Youth at Work
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: N/A
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.