Media advocacy for farm safety and health: current landscape and future directions.

BACKGROUND

Within public health, media advocacy embraces the influence of new media and journalists in setting public agendas and promoting important public health programming and policies. Though occupational health and safety (OSH) is an important component of public health, few studies have examined the use of media advocacy within this specific field. This study aims to examine how media is currently used to support OSH efforts as well as opportunities for engaging with this strategy.

METHODS

LexisNexis and AgInjuryNews were used to collect news media pertaining to farm safety, and specifically tractor safety, published between 2018 and 2021 in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. A total of 372 news articles were identified. Content analysis was used to assess a random sample of these articles (n = 122) to answer the questions: (1) why are stories about farm and tractor safety in the news; (2) who speaks in the news about farm and tractor safety; (3) how are farming, farmers, and farm safety depicted in the news; (4) who is named as responsible for and called upon to take action to address farm and tractor safety issues; and (5) what solutions to address farm and tractor safety are mentioned?

RESULTS

In general, relevant news stories (n = 89) were published as a result of event (such as tractor overturns or safety days). Many stories placed responsibility for both farm injury events and the need to increase safety measures solely on farmers, demonstrating a missed opportunity for understanding how farm safety is impacted by the larger societal context, like legislation and government programs.

CONCLUSIONS

Using these findings, the authors provide several suggestions for OSH practitioners who hope to improve their use of media to advance farm safety agendas.