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Rural Health Information Hub
Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Project Examples: Farmers and farmworkers

Effective Examples

Updated/reviewed November 2024

  • Need: To encourage farmers to make health and safety changes on their farms.
  • Intervention: Farm Dinner Theater is an event in which farmers and their families watch three 10-minute plays covering health and safety topics and then discuss solutions to the issues addressed in each.
  • Results: In a study, farmers who attended the plays were more likely to make changes and tell others what they learned, compared to farmers who received an educational packet with the same information.

Promising Examples

Updated/reviewed November 2024

  • Need: Farmers are highly susceptible to permanent hearing loss due to prolonged exposure to loud machinery and livestock.
  • Intervention: Faculty and students from the audiology department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison supplied earplugs, free hearing testing, and hearing loss prevention education to attendees and participants at an annual tractor pull event.
  • Results: Between 2014 and 2019, the audiology team distributed more than 16,000 pairs of earplugs; attendees were receptive to the hearing loss prevention education provided by the team.

Other Project Examples

Updated/reviewed January 2025

  • Need: To increase access to healthy foods in two rural Nevada counties.
  • Intervention: HCC and the Rural Health and Nutrition Initiative (RHNI) run food pantries, assist with community and school gardens, and have a farmers market during the summer.
  • Results: The three food pantries together serve about 3,600 people and distribute over 100,000 pounds of food each month.

Updated/reviewed October 2024

  • Need: To reduce injuries in agricultural communities and improve emergency responders' preparedness when called to farms and ranches.
  • Intervention: RF-DASH equips rural fire/EMS personnel and others with agricultural health and safety knowledge and tools to pre-plan for agricultural emergencies as well as assess and then mitigate agricultural hazards.
  • Results: Over 150 firefighters and EMTs have received training to become RF-DASH trainers.

Updated/reviewed February 2024

  • Need: To reduce farm injuries and improve EMS and fire/rescue's response to these injuries in rural Louisiana and Mississippi.
  • Intervention: AGRIMEDIC is a two-day training for first responders.
  • Results: 810 first responders have received training.

Updated/reviewed February 2024

  • Need: To help farmers with disabilities continue farming while protecting their well-being.
  • Intervention: The FARM program helps disabled or ill farmers continue to operate and work their Wisconsin farms.
  • Results: Since 2009, the FARM Program has helped over 3,500 farmers continue to farm, resume farming, or find an alternative agricultural occupation.

Updated/reviewed October 2023

  • Need: Men in the agriculture industry face high suicide rates due to factors including long hours, geographic isolation, lack of social opportunities, and stigma surrounding mental health care.
  • Intervention: The Coffee Break Project, a program led by Valley-Wide Health Systems, Inc. in southeastern Colorado, encourages mental health check-ins for farmers and ranchers through a public awareness campaign and casual coffee gatherings that utilize COMET, an intervention model developed specifically for rural communities.
  • Results: Between eight and 20 people typically attend each coffee gathering.

Updated/reviewed November 2020

  • Need: Preventive and chronic medical condition care for farm families/agribusiness owners/employees with time and monetary constraints.
  • Intervention: Through a "Kitchen Wellness" program, a trained healthcare professional provides in-home or on-site complimentary preventive health screening, educational materials, and community referral information.
  • Results: Completion of hundreds of health screenings, tailored health education sessions and referral information.

Updated/reviewed May 2020

  • Need: Agricultural producers and Pennsylvania's farmworker population needed guidance on complying with Environmental Protection Agency regulations on the safe use of pesticides used in agricultural production.
  • Intervention: An outreach education program providing compliance and technical assistance for growers was developed which included training materials targeted to the regionally-specific language, customs, and traditions of workers.
  • Results: Pesticide use training and other farm safety information is now readily available to Pennsylvania's farmers and farmworkers.