National Centre for Farmer Health has $900k funding confirmed
ABC Rural / By Warwick Long, Angus Verley, and Emma Field
Posted Wed 15 May 2024 at 11:25amWednesday 15 May 2024 at 11:25am, updated Wed 15 May 2024 at 5:52pm
| Funding for the National Centre for Farmer Health (NCFH) has been confirmed after the centre previously said the Victorian government had cut their funding. The Victorian government has called representatives of the National Centre for Farmer Health to inform them the funding has been confirmed for another year. A spokesperson from the government said the funding had been found outside the budget through “other sources”. “We’re continuing our support of the centre with a $900,000 investment next financial year — as we have done every year, when in government,” the spokesperson said. “The NCFH plays an important role identifying and preventing chronic disease and safety risk factors in the agriculture and farming community.” Board members of the centre said they were relieved after spending the last few days holding emergency meetings about its future. “It was devastating when we lost the funding and really disappointing,” chair Greg Walcott said. “You’ve got to give credit to the government. We were angry with the decision originally but give credit to someone who has made a mistake and reversed it.” “That’s not usually happening anywhere but certainly [not] in politics. The centre, which is based in Hamilton, south-west Victoria, runs a series of preventative programs to improve farmer physical and mental health, improve workplace safety, and conduct research. Prior to the funding reinstatement, NCFH director Alison Kennedy said the government had confirmed $900,000 in annual funding had been cut. “We have had [the cut] confirmed from staff at both the Department of Health and Agriculture Victoria,” Ms Kennedy said. NCFH used this funding to run core activities and attract funding and grants for health projects and research from around Australia. A dangerous time for farming In 2022, Safe Work Australia listed agriculture, forestry, and fishing as having the highest fatality rate of any industry in the country and work from the National Centre for Farmer Health has been trying to address that issue. Ms Kennedy said the organisation tracked the success of each of its programs. “Farmers have come back to us on a pretty regular basis to say, ‘That actually did save my life,'” she said. “We were able to demonstrate that we save the health system money by running health check programs by preventing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and absolutely saved lives.” Andrew Perry from Gobur near Alexandra in regional Victoria is one of the farmers who has relied on the services of the NCFH during downturns in the dairy industry and again after widespread flooding in 2022. “These people do terrific work and they keep helping us out,” he said. “Agriculture is $19.5 billion of Victoria’s GDP annually and yet what are we doing [cutting funding], we are pulling away the services that make us the lucky state and the lucky country. “When I say I received help, I probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for these good people.” Uncertain future for farmer health The organisation is a national centre by name but has always run with Victorian funding. Directors were meeting this week to decide the centre’s future with limited funding. “There will be an impact on our ability to deliver direct services to farming communities,” Ms Kennedy said. “We may have to cut back on health checks at field days, our agri-space clinics, the sort of research we can do, particularly long-term larger-size projects. “It will have an impact on the sort of education we can deliver from the postgraduate level down to secondary schools and that direct communication with farming populations themselves.” While the centre has had its funding confirmed for the next year, its future beyond that is still uncertain. The loss of funding in the future would also affect the regional Victorian town of Hamilton, where the National Centre for Farmer Health is based. Ms Kennedy said bringing skilled medical professionals and researchers to a regional community that needed them was critical. |
Addressing Farm Safety: Insights from SafeWork NSW Industry Roundtable
In April, A/Prof Alison Kennedy and Dr Jacquie Cotton were invited by Minister Sophie Cotsis (NSW Minister for Work Health and Safety) to attend the SafeWork NSW industry roundtable to explore ways of improving work health and safety compliance and reduce fatalities and serious injuries on farms. Despite high levels of engagement with the agriculture industry over the last 10 years SafeWork NSW acknowledged that the number of farming-related fatalities had not significantly reduced and were keen to identify requirements for more work to improve safety in the industry.
Approximately 40-50 people attended the roundtable discussion held in Griffith, including the NSW Minister for Agriculture, local Member of Parliament Helen Dalton, representatives from SafeWork NSW, NSW Department of Primary Industries, NSW Local Lands Service, Country Women’s Association, a range of industry representatives (including horticulture, cotton, dairy, transport), along with a number of farmers bringing lived experience of personal injury and fatality on farms.
The program included brief presentations and opportunities for everyone to discuss challenges and propose solutions to the challenges of farm safety—including the importance of considering physical and mental health as causes of, and outcomes of, poor safety practices on farms. The packed program included discussions on:
- The role that all stakeholders have in making farms safer—not only farmers—and where investment in further support might be of greatest benefit.
- Prioritising prevention of risks to health, wellbeing and safety, to avoid having to deal with the outcomes of injury.
- Ensuring that safety messaging is appropriate to meet the needs of a diverse farming population (considering language, culture, learning styles, literacy levels, etc.)
- Ensuring that links between safety and productivity are made clear across the supply chain (from machinery manufacturers actively marketing safe farming equipment to farmers being aware of the cost savings to having a safe workplace)
- The need for continuing research to identify and track leading safety indicators—proactive and preventative measures that can help track how effective safety initiatives are and can highlight potential problems in safety programs—over time.
- Removing unsafe farming practices in the depiction of agriculture in media and social media (e.g. images, language) as ‘accepted’, ‘normal’ and ‘unavoidable’.
- Reducing the stigma associated with speaking up about safety and seeking support.
- Ensuring that policies, procedures and safety resources don’t just exist, but also being used, understanding their use, and whether they effect change.
- The need to address the cumulative pressures in the agriculture sector (e.g. time, climate, costs, workforce availability, supply chain) which encourage fatigue, risk taking and poor decision making.
- The need to question the necessity of pressure driven fast-paced systems/tasks that are inherently dangerous e.g. seed cleaning, harvest, and look at different ways to achieve these tasks more safely.
A huge amount of information was collected on the day and we look forward to seeing how the National Centre for Farmer Health can be a part of addressing the challenges and creating the solutions moving forward.
Emergency presentations for farm-related injuries in older adults residing in south-western Victoria, Australia
Abstract
Introduction
Farm workers are at high risk for injuries, and epidemiological data are needed to plan resource allocation.
Objective
This study identified regions with high farm-related injury rates in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, for residents aged ≥50 yr.
Design
Retrospective synthesis using electronic medical records of emergency presentations occurring during 2017–2019 inclusive for Local Government Areas (LGA) in the study region. For each LGA, age-standardised incidence rates (per 1000 population/year) were calculated.
Findings
For men and women combined, there were 31 218 emergency presentations for any injury, and 1150 (3.68%) of these were farm-related. The overall age-standardised rate for farm-related injury presentations was 2.6 (95% CI 2.4–2.7); men had a higher rate than women (4.1, 95% CI 3.9–4.4 versus 1.2, 95% CI 1.0–1.3, respectively). For individual LGAs, the highest rates of farm-related emergency presentations occurred in Moyne and Southern Grampians, both rural LGAs. Approximately two-thirds of farm-related injuries occurred during work activities (65.0%), and most individuals arrived at the hospital by transport classified as “other” (including private car, 83.3%). There were also several common injury causes identified: “other animal related injury” (20.2%), “cutting, piercing object” (19.5%), “fall ⟨1 m” (13.1%), and “struck by or collision with object” (12.5%). Few injuries were caused by machinery (1.7%) and these occurred mainly in the LGA of Moyne (65%).
Discussion and Conclusion
This study provides data to inform future research and resource allocation for the prevention of farm-related injuries.
What is already known on this subject?
- Agricultural workers have some of the highest rates of injury of any occupation.
- WorkSafe Victoria released the “Agriculture Strategy 2020-23” describing the dangers and a plan to improve safety in agricultural settings, which requires contemporary evidence and data.
- Farm workers often continue work-related activities past the age of retirement.
What does this study add?
- Approximately 3.7% of all emergency presentations in adults aged ≥50 years occurred in in a farm environment.
- Higher rates of farm-related emergency presentations occurred in the Local Government Areas of Moyne and Southern Grampians.
- These results can help inform future research and prevention strategies for farm-related injuries.
How healthy are the healthcare staff in a rural health service? A cross sectional study
Summary:
The research reports that:
- Healthcare workers operate in a stressful environment; with rotating shifts impacting health and recent evidence suggesting health service/hospital staff have sub-optimal dietary and physical activity behaviours and experience psychological distress.
- Workplace settings are an ideal place to promote healthy behaviours amongst staff.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the need to understand the health and wellbeing of healthcare workers in hospital settings.
There are clear leverage points for intervention in the rural /regional hospital workplace to enable healthier behaviours and support positive mental health and wellbeing.
Working with Udder Delights to raise money for farmer mental health!
We are excited to announce that we have partnered with Udder Delights, co-branding a special brie to help raise funds for the important work we do to support farmer mental health.
Udder Delights is a premium dairy company that calls Lobethal, South Australia, home. Working closely with the local dairy farmers, the team at Udder Delights understand and values the long days and incredible commitment farmers make.
Working with their local dairy farmers, they create handcrafted, delicious dairy products. One of which, the Double Brie, is now raising money for the National Centre for Farmer Health!
Keep an eye out for the NCFH x Udder Delights cheese in stores at Coles across the country! Every purchase sends .20c our way, to be used to help improve the lives of farmers and farming communities in Australia.
Find out more about Udder Delights and the incredible work they do with local dairies through the button below.
More MRFF funding announced for Deakin
Deakin University health and social work researchers have received more than $2.75 million in the latest round of Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grants, specifically for projects to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for LGBTIQA+ people.
The funding is in addition to the almost $9.5 million in MRFF grants awarded to Deakin in February and is part of the largest ever investment in LGBTIQA+ health research by an Australian government.
It recognises that LGBTIQA+ people have unique and often complex health needs, and difficulty getting appropriate health care, which can lead to poorer physical and mental health outcomes.
‘We know that there are unacceptable disparities in health outcomes and significant barriers to getting the health care LGBTIQA+ people deserve,’ said Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon Ged Kearney MP.
Deakin’s Associate Professor Alison Kennedy, Dr James Lucas, Dr Amie O’Shea and Dr Louisa Smith will lead research projects that seek to overcome these barriers and improve care for LGBTIQA+ people.
Caring for young LGBTIQA+ people in rural communities
Deakin health researchers have received almost $2 million to develop and implement a safe spaces model of primary healthcare (SSMPH) for sexuality diverse young people in rural Western Victoria.
Co-designed with the sexuality diverse community, the model will be embedded in local health services for young people aged 12-25 years.
The research is led by the School of Medicine’s Associate Professor Kennedy, Director of the National Centre for Farmer Health (NCFH), and Dr Lucas and Dr O’Shea, from Deakin’s Institute for Health Transformation (IHT) and School of Health and Social Development.
The project will combine systems thinking and health economics in an innovative whole-of-community systems approach to support health services and consumer advocates in building safe and equitable rural primary healthcare ‘from the ground up and the inside out’.
‘The intersectional needs of sexuality diverse young people in rural communities are a national and local priority and primary healthcare services are a key first-point-of-call in addressing those needs,’ Associate Professor Kennedy says.
‘Intersectional needs’ refers to how people may experience overlapping forms of discrimination or disadvantage based on attributes such as race, age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexuality.
The research team at Deakin, which includes Professor Suzanne Robinson (Director of IHT’s Deakin Health Economics), Professor Gary Rogers (Dean of Medicine), Professor Susan Brumby, and Dr Jo Macdonald (NCFH) will initially focus on working with key community groups and organisations, consumer advocates and local health services across Western Victoria to co-design the SSMPH, before looking at community-driven implementation of the model.
A key feature is establishing a scalable prototype for a whole-of-community systems approach to co-designing and implementing models of primary healthcare that meet the intersectional needs of sexuality diverse young people in rural communities that can be adapted in other communities, including raising awareness and delivering education and training for mainstream primary healthcare providers on the needs of LGBTIQA+ young people.
Professor Alison Kennedy, Dr James Lucas and Dr Amie O’Shea will develop and implement a safe spaces model of primary healthcare for sexuality diverse young people in rural Western Victoria.
Improving care for LGBTIQA+ people living with dementia
Dr Louisa Smith’s funding of almost $755,000 will refine and implement an existing model of care concept called SAGE-Dem that has arisen from long term and ongoing consultation with community peers supporting people with sexuality and gender experiences (SAGE) living with dementia.
‘People living with dementia who have minority sexuality and gender experiences are a diverse and under-served group. After lifetimes of discrimination, people living with SAGE and dementia may avoid or resist aged and health care services which assume heterosexual and cisgendered consumers,’ Dr Smith says.
‘LGBTIQ+ community-controlled organisations don’t have expertise about dementia and mainstream aged and health care providers don’t have the cultural competence to support LGBTIQ+ people. SAGE-Dem is a world-first model of care designed to improve the physical and mental health of people with SAGE who experience the intersectional disadvantage of dementia.’
With a twin focus of increasing the cultural competence of the health and aged care workforce and the dementia awareness of LGBTIQ+ community-controlled organisations and communities, implementing the co-designed model of care will be supported by the development and evaluation of an intersectional cultural competence framework and a training and engagement toolkit.
‘Improving the cultural competence, or knowledge, skills and attitudes about a group of people you don’t belong to, and the dementia awareness of those supporting people with SAGE living with dementia are key to improving their physical and mental health outcomes,’ Dr Smith says.
Dr Smith’s research team includes Alfred Deakin Professor Alison Hutchinson, Co-director of IHT’s Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research (QPS) and IHT’s Dr Joanne Watson, Dr Renee Fiolet and Dr Amie O’Shea.
Dr Louisa Smith’s project seeks to improve care for people with sexuality and gender experiences (SAGE) living with dementia.
Deakin’s Q-UEERS Network
Dr Lucas, Dr O’Shea and Dr Smith are founding members of Q-UEERS (Queering-Up Equity and Equality Research Spaces) – a group of Queer academic researchers at Deakin whose work promotes the ABCs of Living Queer (Authenticity, Belonging and Connection).
For more information, contact q-ueers@deakin.edu.au.
Episode 23: “Check Up and Thrive: Unveiling the Power of a Farmer Health Check”
Discover the importance of farmer health checks! Join Simon Green, a farmer at Elmhurst, as he shares his firsthand experience with health checks and the benefits he discovered.
Also hear from agrihealth professional Rosi Bear how she empowers farmers with knowledge to enhance their health, wellbeing, and safety outcomes.
Now streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and here.
This podcast was created as part of the NCFH’s #BuildingFarmSpirit campaign with funding from the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions as part of the Victorian Government’s 2022 flood response.
LEARN MORE ABOUT #BUILDINGFARMSPIRIT #BuildingFarmSpirit | National Centre for Farmer Health
Which Technologies Make Australian Farm Machinery Safer? A Decision Support Tool for Agricultural Safety Effectiveness
Abstract
This project combined systems engineers, farm safety researchers, work health and safety inspectorate and policymakers with the aim of designing a way in which to reduce fatal farm injury caused by run-overs and roll-overs by tractors and side-by-side vehicles. The team made comparisons between farm machinery and powered mobile plant that is used in the industrial manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, mining, and construction sectors. Current and emerging safety technologies and engineering solutions were collated. Safety standards, legislated engineering controls, retrofit designs, and known ways in which farmers’ workaround safety features were considered. These elements were used as criteria to propose a way to resolve which safety technologies or engineering controls should be recommended for aftermarket retrofitting or incorporated at the original equipment manufacturer design stage. The concept of measuring safety effectiveness to prevent fatal farm injury emerged. This developed into a score sheet and a corresponding matrix to highlight engineering strength and industry acceptance. The project resulted in the conceptual design of the agricultural safety effectiveness score (ASES). The next phase is a multi-stakeholder validation process and a protocol for the scoring system. It requires a hypothesis to test the theory that when safety technologies and engineering solutions are mature in other industries or if they are associated with agricultural productivity gains, their adoption into the agricultural sector is more likely, which in turn will reduce the incidence of tractor and side-by-side run-overs and roll-overs on farms.
Farmer Health eNews February 2024
Find out the latest from the National Centre for Farmer Health
- Shifting Gears returns for 2024!
- Are you a mental health professional wanting to better engage with your farming clients?
- Join us for a meal (on us!) and a yarn about farmer mental health
- New Campfire Podcast and Collaborative Series unveiled!
- Visit us at the Motherland conference in March!
- Upcoming events
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Win a ticket to the Motherland 2024 National Conference!
Join us at Australia’s biggest rural mother’s group! Motherland’s inaugural National Conference will be an event like no other.
Friday March 1st and Saturday March 2nd in Launceston, Tasmania
We are offering one lucky person the chance to win a ticket to the Motherland 2024 National Conference on March 1st and 2nd this year! This ticket gets you full access to their 2-day conference including day sessions, and to the Friday night cocktail event and dinner. You will have access to all speaker sessions and receive a special gift bag on arrival!
Two epic days. Jaw-dropping speakers. Connect and fill your cup.
To enter, please tag a friend in one of our social media posts and make sure you are following us on either Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. You can find our social media handles below.
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Please note that this prize does not include travel and accommodation expenses.
Harvesting Safe Farmers: A comprehensive exploration of child farm safety
Learn more about the approach PhD candidate Jessie Adams used in her study on child safety on farms in The Inspire Magazine here.
Looking back at 2023…
What a ride it’s been in the last 12 months! Our heartfelt thanks extend to our dedicated team, valued stakeholders, esteemed board members, patrons, and, most importantly, the farmers and farming communities with whom we are privileged to work.
2023 has been a blast, and guess what? We’re strapping in for an even wilder adventure in 2024!