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Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation
Summary of full report
by Dr Jenny Sherrard
and Dr Lesley Day
Monash University Accident
Research
Centre, Victoria, Australia.
June 2001
RIRDC Publication No 01/054
RIRDC Project No UMO-22A
Background and Purpose
Farm health and safety initiatives in Australia have largely been guided by the philosophy agreed to and adopted by the member organisations of Farmsafe Australia. The underpinning principle of this philosophy is that the key responsibility for farm health and safety ultimately rests with farmers, their families and workers. Successful implementation of farm health and safety programs requires increased awareness, competency development, promotion of leadership, and partnerships at the local and industry levels to build the capacity within the industry to improve productivity, sustainability, health, wellbeing and safety. This process will be enhanced by the development and maintenance of a culture of safety within agricultural industries and rural communities.
Building of capacity is commonly directed at outcomes projected at some considerable time into the future. Therefore, it is useful to distinguish three levels of outcome for farm health and safety initiatives in terms of their respective time-frame of achievement. The first concerns measurable health gains achievable in relatively short time frames; the second, improved health care or health promotion delivery with an intermediate time frame and the third level of outcome involves the long term goals of enhanced institutional, professional and community capacity for better decision-making and more effective action. These concepts are inherent in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion which focuses on health as a positive concept emphasising social and personal resources and on health promotion as creating conditions to achieve not only healthy lifestyles but also general well- being.
These guidelines have been written to support the ongoing development of, and capacity building within, the safety field in Australia. Potential users of these guidelines include: program managers, health promotion officers, community health workers, community groups, Farm Safety Action Groups, agricultural extension officers, Divisions of General Practice, commodity and industry based groups, funding bodies, and others involved in health and safety in the rural sector. The guidelines show that by merging evaluation and program activities, evaluation may not take as much time and effort as is commonly believed.
An ongoing commitment to an evidence and business based approach clearly challenges program managers, researchers and evaluators to continue to provide high quality data, including that required for cost-benefit analyses, to inform prevention policies. Evaluation is an integral component to the evidence base for prevention programs, providing guidance on the selection of effective strategies, demonstrating the value of programs, and increasing commitment from funding agencies.
It is important to note that these guidelines focus on evaluation principles and methods, and are not intended to be a comprehensive source of information about improving health and safety, or preventing injury and disease. For simplicity and consistency, we use the principles of injury occurrence and its prevention to illustrate how a safety program is planned and how evaluation is woven into the planning and fabric of the program. These principles can be applied to any preventive health program and its evaluation.
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