Orphan Boy the Farmer: Evaluating Folktales to Teach Safety to Hmong Farmers

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bartz P ; Lee TT ; Moua M ; Schermann MA ; Shutske JM ; Vue PC
• Description:
  Many Hmong refugees continue their cultural tradition of farming in the United States. The purpose of this project was to evaluate culturally based storytelling as a method to convey farming safety information to Hmong families. Hmong have an oral tradition; spoken stories are used to teach about heritage, as well as personal and social values, and end with a lesson or moral that can apply to their lives. Stories from "Orphan Boy the Farmer" illustrate hazards, behaviors, consequences, and control strategies related to farm work typical of Hmong farming in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The message of the 3 stories is that the successful farmer works safely and keeps his children safe from injury. Three stories were read, in Hmong, at 6 events in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Data were collected from 118 participants using focus group discussions. Transcripts were translated and analyzed to identify ideas and reactions to the stories expressed by participants. Findings indicate that storytelling was an appealing delivery method for most of the participants of this study. Participants were able to recount story content pertaining to farming safety and relate messages to their experiences dealing with hazards; unanticipated findings uncovered barriers to adopting safe practices. Several aspects of the storytelling performance influence its effectiveness. Development of folktale content and implementation of storytelling performances are described. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Agriculture Behavior Occupational Health Race Factors Safety Safety Management
• Keywords:
  Accident-prevention Agricultural-industry Agricultural-workers Behavior-patterns Children Injury-prevention Racial-factors Safety-education Safety-measures Safety-practices Work-practices

  More +
• ISSN:
  1059-924X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Minnesota ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  39-49
• Volume:
  12
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20034749
• Citation:
  J Agromedicine 2008 Oct; 12(4):39-49
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• NORA Priority Area:
  Work Environment and Workforce: Special Populations
• Performing Organization:
  University of Minnesota
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20000930
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Agromedicine
• End Date:
  20040928
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:29785091ee8c7e9f131146d25f1af581dc757a613ac1ec7b073c1b263ec7cd5b952ead1bb192dc8b9b677008929ce351228741eaf637e2050f809e721a54cd1a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/186842/cdc_186842_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 237.79 KB ]