ABSTRACT

Purpose: Impacts of long term, chronic stress cause concern among farm operators, workers, and their family members. The team involved with this work has built partnerships and program collaborations that connect the issue of chronic farm stress with high rates of workplace injury and occupational health problems common in the agricultural industry. Acute and chronic stress contribute often to distraction while performing work activity and feelings of being overwhelmed, and they complicate a farm operator’s or employee’s ability to make optimal operational and financial decisions. Our farm stress educational and technical support programs have focused on the biology and physiology of chronic stress, stress management practices and behaviors, communication, and taking control of one’s financial future.

Methods: A team of approximately 30 educators, researchers, and partner personnel created a comprehensive web-based resource center focused on interventions connected to chronic farm stress, suicide prevention, communication, and financial tools that help guide farmers and ranchers through difficult financial conditions and decisions. These efforts have also focused on teaching farmers, ranchers, agricultural service providers, and other allied community professionals about linkages between chronic stress, high injury rates (resulting from fatigue, distraction, and error rates), and disease (cardiovascular, type 2 diabetes, infection, etc.).

Findings: The work is ongoing and has been led by a cross-disciplinary team with member expertise including agricultural health and safety, financial management, farm family relationships, program evaluation, and human health and well-being. An intervention evaluation “question bank” has been created that contains specific program evaluation questions developed for 16 different program curricula/series including those developed by the team or by other partner organizations.

Translation to practical application by agricultural industry: It is our goal that this work on prevention and intervention on farm and ranch stress will impact on agricultural safety and health for farmers, farm workers, and family members. The program evaluation information will prove useful as participants and readers consider similar efforts within their respective organizations, states, companies, etc., and as they develop appropriate anticipated outcomes and impacts and associated evaluation tools.

摘要

目的：长期长期压力的影响引起农场经营者，工人及其家人的关注。从事这项工作的团队建立了伙伴关系和计划合作关系，将长期的农场压力问题与农业行业常见的高工伤率和职业健康问题联系在一起。急性和慢性压力通常在进行工作活动和不知所措时会分散注意力，使农场经营者或员工做出最佳运营和财务决策的能力变得复杂。我们的农场压力教育和技术支持计划重点关注慢性压力的生物学和生理学，压力管理实践和行为，沟通以及控制个人的财务未来。

方法：由大约30名教育者，研究人员和合作伙伴组成的团队创建了一个基于Web的综合资源中心，重点关注与长期农场压力，自杀预防，沟通和财务工具相关的干预措施，这些措施可帮助农民和牧场主度过艰难的财务状况和决定。这些努力还集中在向农民，牧场主，农业服务提供者和其他相关社区专业人员传授有关慢性压力，高伤害率（由于疲劳，分心和错误率导致）和疾病（心血管疾病，2型糖尿病，感染等）。

调查结果：这项工作正在进行中，由一个跨学科团队领导，该团队的成员包括农业健康与安全，财务管理，农场家庭关系，计划评估以及人类健康和福祉。已经创建了一个干预评估“问题库”，其中包含针对16个不同计划课程/系列开发的特定计划评估问题，包括团队或其他合作伙伴组织开发的课程/系列。

转换为农业企业的实际应用：我们的目标是，这项针对农场和牧场压力的预防和干预工作将影响农民，农场工人及其家庭成员的农业安全和健康。当参与者和读者考虑他们各自的组织，州，公司等内部的类似努力，以及他们制定适当的预期结果和影响以及相关的评估工具时，该计划评估信息将被证明是有用的。