The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #35441

Karen D. Liller¹, Virginia Noland², Pabitra Rijal¹, Karen Pesce³, and Robin Gonzalez³. (1) Community and Family Health, USF College of Public Health, 13201 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa, FL 33612, 813-974-6685, kliller@hsc.usf.edu, (2) Health Science Education, University of Florida, Room 5, FLG, PO Box 118210, Gainesville, FL 32611-8210, (3) MORE HEALTH Program, 1405 Swann Ave., Tampa, FL 33606

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to develop and evaluate the Kids Count farm safety lesson for fifth graders in Hillsborough County, Florida. The Kids County lesson was tailored to farming in Florida and built upon the constructs of the health belief model and the North American Guidelines for Children's Agricultural Tasks. Methods: This interactive lesson included several pre-and post-lesson parent and teacher materials and professional visuals and props. Fifteen rural schools received the lesson, including the four leading migrant schools in the county. The impact of the lesson was determined through a staggered pre-posttest study design whereby five randomly chosen schools received a pilot-tested pretest approximately one-week before the lesson and all schools received the posttest approximately one-week after the lesson. Results: Four-hundred-eighty students completed the pretest and 1,262 students completed the posttest for a total of 1,742 students participating in the evaluation process. There was a significant increase in posttest scores in the five schools (p=.001) largely focused on machinery safety and proper lifting behaviors. A "pretest" effect was eliminated due to there being no significant difference between the posttest means of the pretested vs. non-pretested schools. Conclusions: The results of this study show that the Kids Count lesson significantly increased farm safety knowledge among this target population. This is one of the first farm safety studies to include migrant students and to evaluate the efficacy of an elementary school farm safety curriculum. Future observational studies will be conducted to determine if knowledge change leads to changes in parent and child behavior.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the curriculum of the Kids Count farm safety lesson as it relates to the Health Belief Model and the North American Guidelines for Children's Agricultural Tasks.
• Discuss the evaluation process of the Kids Count lesson in the 15 elementary schools in Hillsborough County, Florida.
• Describe the importance of the evaluation results in terms of future knowledge and behavioral studies.

Keywords: Agricultural Work Safety, Children

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.