In order to help reduce agricultural injuries and fatalities on family farms, the National Center for Rural Agricultural Health and Safety has developed age guidelines as a significant tool to assist parents in making appropriate choices regarding engaging children in farm tasks. Yet, there continues to be a significant discrepancy between the guidelines and parents' actual practices concerning the age appropriate engagement of children in farm tasks. By determining what additional variables besides age enter into parents' decision making processes to first involve their children in farm tasks and by providing information about parents training and supervision practices as well as role modeling behavior, we can begin to evaluate why or why not the NAGCAT might be effective. Quantitative and qualitative approaches will be combined to analyze data collected both as to parents' attitudes toward the NAGCAT, and parent's practices and attitudes in regard to the employment, training, and supervision of their children in farm tasks. Role modeling and gender issues will especially be evaluated as factors. Specific interventions will be designed based on research findings, at the center of which will be a proposed demonstration project designed to both modify and expand the language and presentation of the NAGCAT with the purpose of increasing their effectiveness in preventing injuries and fatalities to farm children.
