Unveiling the Effect of Repeated Exposure to Agricultural Injury News: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries in the United States, especially for children. Despite considerable efforts to develop and implement interventions that protect children, the burden of agricultural injury and disease remains a stubborn and multifaceted public health concern. This study examined the effects of repeated exposure to agricultural injury news on farm parents’ risk perception and behavioral intentions for farm safety practices. The study also examined the roles of existing self- and response-efficacy in the effect of agricultural injury news consumption on behavioral intention. In 2021 and 2022, the study team conducted a field experiment where farm parents were randomly assigned to an intervention group (reading weekly child agricultural injury news articles for 4 weeks) and a control group (reading weekly non-injury “farm life” articles for 4 weeks). Participants completed online pre- and post-test surveys before and after intervention. The PROCESS model was employed to test research hypotheses, and 162 participants were included in the analyses. The results showed that repeated exposure to agricultural injury news increased farm parents’ perceived severity of agricultural incidents; in turn, perceived severity enhanced their behavioral intention to adopt agricultural safety practices. The partial moderated mediation analysis shows that the indirect effect of perceived severity between repeated news exposure and behavioral intention to adopt farm safety practices were not dependent on farm parents’ levels of self- and response-efficacy. These results imply that agricultural injury news consumption could be a viable intervention to reduce U.S. childhood agricultural injury and fatality. Findings may also lead to additional lines of research, including similar testing with different groups of agricultural stakeholders, expansion to adults, and safety intervention research for other industries.