School of Nursing joins Wisconsin Office of Rural Health to offer online farm safety course

"If a man can’t be happy on a little farm in Wisconsin, he doesn’t have the makings of happiness in his soul."

Words displayed beneath the painting of a red barn, green pastures, romping children and contented cows by artist and Hollandale, Wis., farmer Nick Engelbert (1881-1962) convey the idyllic, agricultural roots of The Dairy State. The harmonious setting, however, does have its dark side. The truth of the matter is that farming is a dangerous business.

According to the National Safety Council, agriculture consistently ranks alongside construction, mining and transportation as one of the four most deadly industries in America. It is this fact that prompted the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health (WORH), under the leadership of then-director Barbara L. Duerst, MS, RN, to develop the Partners in Agricultural Health (PAH) program funded through a grant from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy.

Designing the farm safety curriculum

The project united PAH with hospitals, public health agencies in Adams, Juneau and Sauk counties, the Rural Health Cooperative and the Southwest Wisconsin Area Health Education Center (AHEC) in finding ways to educate health care providers about the unique needs of the farming population. One focus of the project was to design a health curriculum featuring modules by nurses, physicians, epidemiologists and audiologists from across the Midwest who specialized in agricultural medicine.

The project’s goal, as defined by PAH was “to educate health care providers in hospitals, clinics, public health departments and professional training programs about the unique needs of the farming population.” The teach-the-teacher concept informed health professionals about farm dangers, farm safety and health promotion so that they could better serve the rural communities.

Adapting the curriculum for online use

Duerst and PAH distributed three-ring binders with module and supporting information to health professionals in the tri-county area and offered in-person training sessions. However, there seemed to be minimal use of the print-based material, according to Duerst, until “a patient presented with a problem.”

Deciding to make the information Web-based, she approached Jeannette McDonald, PhD, faculty associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing and noted expert in distance education.

“We felt that the content was too valuable not to be shared with a larger audience,” says Duerst. “So, we talked to Jeannette and company about making it an online course that was more interactive and could reach a wider audience, possibly medical students, nursing students, and other health professional students, as well as health care providers.”

McDonald shared Duerst’s plan with Jody Diedrich, MS, outreach specialist and clinical instructor at the School of Nursing, who supported the opportunity to make online continuing education available to health care practitioners who serve farm families in Wisconsin—with the potential to reach other Midwestern farm communities as well.

Program content

“The interesting thing about this project,” says McDonald, “is that it was designed to be multidisciplinary. The content experts are a mixture of health professionals … and the modules are being offered both through the School of Nursing and Continuing Medical Education. It was our first foray into offering courses through both schools for physicians and nurses.”

The course, titled “Agricultural Health,” comprises 10 modules, which can be taken a la carte or as an entire program. The topics assigned to each module are distinct in nature, yet embody the concerns of farm communities—children’s agricultural health and safety, mental health care for families, acute injuries on the farm, respiratory hazards, skin diseases, exposure to pesticides, hearing impairment, and zoonoses.

The zoonoses module was recently included in the curriculum and has drawn attention simply by virtue of its name. It is taught by George Mejicano, MD, MS, and Chris Olsen, DVM, who inform participants about diseases such as anthrax, rabies and Milker’s nodules—all transmissible, yet preventable with proper agricultural and safety practices.

Future of farm safety

Wisconsin, with its approximately 75,000 farms and a rating as one of the top 10 agricultural states in the nation, warrants focus on farm health, says Diedrich. She sees the online venture as a useful tool for supporting Wisconsin’s need to improve health care for its farmers and their families.

“Agriculture and farming are a significant part of our Wisconsin culture. Being the ‘Dairy State,’ we want to keep our farm families healthy and our rural health care providers educated with the most up-to-date information related to agriculture,” says Diedrich. “We're excited to be offering a continuing education program that allows farm injury and disease prevention to become a specialty focus for practitioners in health care.

To find out more about WORH, or the Agricultural Health course, visit the following Web sites:

 http://www.worh.org/new_orh_docs/resrc_farmershealth.asp

http://mynursingce.son.wisc.edu/index.pl?op=show;id=7577