Understanding Stakeholder Dissemination Preferences for an Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Injury Surveillance System

ABSTRACT

Researchers and epidemiologists are working to improve the capture of agriculture, forestry, and fishing (AgFF) injuries in a variety of ways. A critical component of any surveillance system is the dissemination of information. The purpose of this paper is to report on a survey conducted with AgFF injury surveillance stakeholders to understand preferred dissemination strategies. The survey was distributed using REDCap via web link to organizational stakeholders, which included advisory board members, safety trainers, industry managers and workers, and research collaborators. In total, there were 75 respondents (21% response rate). Occupation and industry influenced preference in update methods. Regarding the length and breadth of updates, 63% of respondents prefer reports (one to five pages), followed by 57% desiring a summary (less than one page), while only 24% wanted a detailed analysis. Social media and news preferences were also different among stakeholders. Surveillance data were desired for 1) trend analysis, 2) tailoring activities and solutions for education, training, outreach and interventions and 3) for research purposes such as grant proposals and evaluation. The dissemination of injury surveillance data should be tailored to the intended audience. Greater attention needs to be paid to the ways in which we share our findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Agriculture
• dissemination
• fishing
• forestry
• occupational
• stakeholder
• surveillance

Acknowledgments

Thank you to all participants for taking part in the survey. Special thanks to the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety staff members Dahlia Sheehan-Yassin and Lucy Bischoff for testing the survey instrument, and to Deborah Dalton who assisted with the literature search.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health [2 U54OH007542].