A descriptive examination of rurality in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Cohort: Implications, illustrations, and future directions.

Purpose: The Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort has enrolled over 60,000 children to examine how early environmental factors (broadly defined) are associated with key child health outcomes. The ECHO Cohort may be well-positioned to contribute to our understanding of rural environments and contexts, which has implications for rural health disparities research. The present study examined the outcome of child obesity to not only illustrate the suitability of ECHO Cohort data for these purposes but also determine how various definitions of rural and urban populations impact the presentation of findings and their interpretation.

Caregiver worry about COVID-19 as a predictor of social mitigation behaviours and SARS-CoV-2 infection in a 12-city U.S. surveillance study of households with children.

Objective: Understanding compliance with COVID-19 mitigation recommendations is critical for informing efforts to contain future infectious disease outbreaks. This study tested the hypothesis that higher levels of worry about COVID-19 illness among household caregivers would predict lower (a) levels of overall and discretionary social exposure activities and (b) rates of household SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Methods: Data were drawn from a surveillance study of households with children ( = 1913) recruited from 12 U.

Farm exposure is associated with human breast milk immune profile and microbiome.

Prenatal and early life farm exposure, and breastfeeding, are associated with protection from allergic diseases. We hypothesize that farm exposure influences the human breast milk microbiome and immune proteins. The immune protein profiles and microbial communities of 152 human breast milk samples were compared among three maternal farm exposure groups (traditional agrarian, farm, and non-farm) in rural Wisconsin to identify signatures associated with farm status and atopic disease.

The Use of Injury and Fatality Narratives to Convey Agricultural Safety and Health Messages and to Develop Effective Resources Through Collaborative, Multi-Disciplinary Approaches (Tell a Story, Save a Life).

Objective: Storytelling engages audiences, passes down traditions and history, educates, and helps people understand and interpret their environment. Many of those who work in agriculture have been part of the storytelling tradition since childhood. Research has demonstrated the emotional impact of personal stories and how prevention information is conveyed effectively "farmer to farmer" through this method of communication.

Provider Adoption of mHealth in Rural Patient Care: Web-Based Survey Study.

Background: Physicians and patient-facing caregivers have increasingly used mobile health (mHealth) technologies in the past several years, accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, barriers and feedback surrounding adoption remain relatively understudied and varied across health systems, particularly in rural areas.

Objective: This study aims to identify provider adoption, attitudes, and barriers toward mHealth in a large, multisite, rural US health care system.

Longitudinal dynamics of farmer and livestock nasal and faecal microbiomes and resistomes.

Globally, half a billion people are employed in animal agriculture and are directly exposed to the associated microorganisms. However, the extent to which such exposures affect resident human microbiomes is unclear. Here we conducted a longitudinal profiling of the nasal and faecal microbiomes of 66 dairy farmers and 166 dairy cows over a year-long period.

Farm animal exposure, respiratory illnesses, and nasal cell gene expression.

Background: Farm exposures in early life reduce the risks for childhood allergic diseases and asthma. There is less information about how farm exposures relate to respiratory illnesses and mucosal immune development.

Objective: We hypothesized that children raised in farm environments have a lower incidence of respiratory illnesses over the first 2 years of life than nonfarm children.

Tractors, Trees, and Rollover Protective Structures: A Cause for Concern.

Injury and fatality events that are caused by tree work and tractor-related activities contribute to the already elevated rates of work-related injuries in the agriculture and logging sectors. This brief report highlights the circumstances surrounding these events, as well as a number of surveillance sources that identify the extent to which they contribute to the injury burden in these hazardous industries. These data sources include fatality investigations, agricultural injury news reports, consumer product injury data captured from emergency rooms and near-miss reporting data captured from individuals participating in the National Rollover Protective Structure Rebate Program (NRRP).

Urban and rural healthcare providers' perspectives on HPV vaccination in Minnesota.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination can dramatically reduce the incidence of HPV-associated cancers. However, HPV vaccination coverage in rural areas is lower than in urban areas, and overall HPV vaccination coverage in the United States remains lower than other adolescent vaccines. We conducted 20 qualitative interviews with adolescent healthcare providers and clinic staff in urban and rural Minnesota and assessed their perspectives on HPV vaccination.

The Potential of AI and ChatGPT in Improving Agricultural Injury and Illness Surveillance Programming and Dissemination.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides unprecedented opportunities to improve injury surveillance systems in many ways, including the curation and publication of information related to agricultural injuries and illnesses. This editorial explores the feasibility and implication of ChatGPT integration in an international sentinel agricultural injury surveillance system, AgInjuryNews, highlighting that AI integration may enhance workflows by reducing human and financial resources and increasing outputs. In the coming years, text intensive natural language reports in AgInjuryNews and similar systems could be a rich source for data for ChatGPT or other more customized and fine-tuned LLMs.

Community intervention trial for estimating risk of acute gastrointestinal illness from groundwater-supplied non-disinfected drinking water.

By community intervention in 14 non-disinfecting municipal water systems, we quantified sporadic acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI) attributable to groundwater. Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection was installed on all supply wells of intervention communities. In control communities, residents continued to drink non-disinfected groundwater.

Social science - STEM collaborations in agriculture, food and beyond: an STSFAN manifesto.

Interdisciplinary research needs innovation. As an action-oriented intervention, this Manifesto begins from the authors' experiences as social scientists working within interdisciplinary science and technology collaborations in agriculture and food. We draw from these experiences to: 1) explain what social scientists contribute to interdisciplinary agri-food tech collaborations; (2) describe barriers to substantive and meaningful collaboration; and (3) propose ways to overcome these barriers.

Cultivating intellectual community in academia: reflections from the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN).

Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN).

Navigating the Ethical and Methodological Dimensions of a Farm Safety Photovoice Project.

Scholars have noted persistent high rates of agricultural health and safety incidents and the need to develop more effective interventions. Participatory research provides an avenue to broaden the prevailing research paradigms and approaches by allowing those most impacted to illuminate and work to solve those aspects of their lives. One such approach is photovoice, an emancipatory visual narrative approach.

Dairy Farm Work and Protection from Gastrointestinal Illness.

Gastrointestinal (GI) disorders are a major public health burden in the United States. Due to close contact with animals, farmers may be a high risk subgroup for acute GI infections, though some studies suggest farm work is actually protective against GI illness. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between dairy farm work and GI symptoms over 3 years.

Needs assessment survey for enhancing United States child agricultural injury prevention capacity: Brief report.

The dissemination of childhood agricultural safety and health information and resources through organizations that farmers trust enhances implementation and the Socio-Ecological Model can help identify these organizations. However, to become effective partners in improving agricultural health and safety, organizations need to build capacity in child agricultural safety and health, thus, more information is needed about these organizations' current practices, needs, and capacity for leadership, policy makers, and knowledge mobilization. An online survey was administered to organization leaders with an interest in child agricultural injury prevention, chosen through agricultural health and safety organization membership lists.

Automation, Climate Change, and the Future of Farm Work: Cross-Disciplinary Lessons for Studying Dynamic Changes in Agricultural Health and Safety.

In this review, we first assess the state of agricultural health and safety research as it pertains to the dynamic challenges facing automating agriculture on a warming planet. Then, we turn to social science fields such as rural sociology, science and technology studies, and environmental studies to leverage relevant insights on the introduction of new technologies, environmental risks, and associated workplace hazards. Increased rates of automation in agriculture alongside new risks associated with climate change create the need for anticipatory governance and adaptive research to study novel mechanisms of worker health and safety.