Risk Perception, Beliefs about Prevention, and Preventive Behaviors of Farmers
1998
Because the concept of “health” in agrarian philosophy is nearly synonymous with
“ability to work”, it seems likely that diseases having little immediate impact on a
farmer’s ability to work may be ignored until they have progressed to a disabling state.
In order to develop effective health and safety programs to reduce the burden of illness
and injury among farmers, it is important to understand the relationship between their
beliefs about prevention and their actual safety practices. In this study, 300 farmers in
central Missouri were surveyed to identify beliefs and practices regarding the
prevention of respiratory diseases, noise induced hearing loss, and skin cancer. For each
problem, farmers who expressed concern about the problem and who also believed it
was preventable were more likely to report taking preventive measures than were those
who did not believe the disease was preventable, those who were not concerned about
it, or both. Understanding the beliefs, values, and concerns of a population is one of the
most important steps in assessing its health needs and a fundamental precursor to
planning health and safety programs. Based on findings from this study, three
recommendations are made for the development of health promotion programs to
reduce agricultural health and injury problems.
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