Implementing a community-based social marketing project to improve agricultural worker health.

Abstract

The Together for Agricultural Safety project is a community-based social marketing project working to reduce the adverse health effects of pesticide exposure among fernery and nursery workers in Florida. In 3 years, the collaboration between university and community researchers has embodied many of the principles of community-based research while completing multiple stages of formative data collection required for a social marketing project. This hybrid approach to developing a health intervention for a minority community has been successful in its early stages because the community partners are organized, empowered, and motivated to execute research activities with the assistance of academic partners. However, this work has also been labor intensive and costly. This article describes the lessons learned by project partners and considers the limitations of this approach for agricultural health research.

Occupational Safety and Health Education and Training for Underserved Populations

“…Agencies have developed and implemented creative social marketing campaigns addressing issues such as lead-based paint exposures to residential painters [6], farmworker safety [7–9], and heat illness among farmworkers, for example [10]. Other agencies have collaborated with groups in the private sector to introduce OSH themes into existing popular media.…”

Exploring the Effectiveness of an Energy Efficiency Behaviour Change Project on Well-Being Outcomes for Indigenous Households in Australia

“…Many social marketing programs explore the effect of their efforts on behaviour change (e.g., the works of [27,[29][30][31][32]). We extended this general understanding by also determining why and when such behaviour changes might occur, and included a broader view of outcomes such as householder well-being.…”

“…In engaging people directly, the framework guides program developers on key steps to take when implementing programs. CBSM has been used in a variety of contexts such as agricultural worker health [29], early diagnosis of lung cancer [30], and environmental regulation policy design and implementation [31]. These applications have all identified and overcome barriers to engaging the target audience and effectively implemented change in their behaviours.…”

Female Farmworkers’ Perceptions of Heat-Related Illness and Pregnancy Health

“…Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) involves community-centered research activities that ultimately ensure interventions are culturally appropriate and sustainable. [26][27][28] Israel et al define this research as a collaborative approach that involves community members, organizational representatives and researchers in all aspects of the research process and focuses on the larger social, political, and economics systems that influence behaviors and access to resources necessary to maintain health. 29 Some of the key principles of the CBPR approach include: the integration of knowledge and action for the mutual benefit of all partners; a co-learning and empowering process to attend to social inequalities; research that is cyclical and iterative; a view of health from both positive and ecological paradigms; and dissemination of findings and knowledge gained to all partners.…”