Applying Learning Theory to Safety and Health Training for Hispanic Immigrant Dairy Workers

Abstract

We designed a safety and health curriculum for dairy immigrant workers aiming to increase knowledge, encourage safe behavior, and reduce worker communication inequalities to prevent occupational injury and diseases. The design is largely based on the Taxonomy of Significant Learning and incorporated behavioral and adult learning theories and principles of occupational hazard control. Trainings were implemented with 836 Spanish-speaking workers from 67 farms in Wisconsin. Sixty-seven percent of workers reported never being trained before in dairy safety, 65% of these worked in dairy for 5 or fewers years, and 26% of workers reported being ever injured while working on dairy. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the trainings suggest that our curriculum successfully increased worker knowledge and promoted contemplation of safe practices. The overall knowledge gain of 25% was statistically significant ( p < .01). Workers recalled at least one key concept, expressed confidence of adopting at least one safety behavior, and mentioned their intention to communicate safety concerns to farmers. To our knowledge, this is the first Taxonomy of Significant Learning application to occupational safety and health education. Our curriculum can support dairy farmers' compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration's annual training requirements by providing our basic safety and health training to workers at early job stages.

Effectiveness of occupational safety and health training for migrant farmworkers: a scoping review

“…Similar results were reported in another pilot study 45 envisaging a peer educator combined with a comic book translated into farmworkers' native language. The same outcomes were observed in the study by Forst et al 39 and by Juarez-Carrillo et al 42 . Another intervention 53 was characterized by the use of interactive flipchart and discussion of real or simulated scenarios.…”

“…SAB and HO were considered in 11 and 3 articles, respectively. However, two different ways of investigating training effectiveness have been detected: a) 9 cross-section studies 8,12,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35] investigated the effects of participation in any training program together with other factors, mainly sociodemographic characteristics and work history (Table 1); b) 20 mainly within-subjects experimental studies 10,28,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] , addressed the effectiveness of specific OSH training methods (Table 2). Results will be presented separately for the two different approaches to training effectiveness.…”

Calf care personnel on dairy farms and their educational opportunities

“…When designing worker safety programs for the Hispanic audience, Menger et al (2016) summarized important considerations for effective training programs, included reading level, the avoidance of stereotypes, and the use of various strategies and learning aids to encourage comprehension. Juárez-Carrillo et al (2017) conducted focus groups with dairy employees to develop a program for farm safety. The employees preferred face-to-face training in Spanish "with visual information requiring minimal reading that actively incorporates dialogue and opportunities to discuss con- cerns."…”

Considerable risk of work-related injury and illnesses among seasonal and migrant farm workers in Ethiopia: A Community-based Cross-sectional Study

“…Factors that can impact the health and safety of migrant and seasonal farm workers include low 4 income, extreme temperatures, exposure to old and unsafe machinery, high workloads, long working hours, exposure to biting insects and animals, and allergies [17,25,26].…”