Multifaceted occupational safety intervention in dairy farming – a randomised pre-post pilot study in Denmark

The agricultural sector (farming) has one of the highest incidence of fatal injuries, in spite of many occupational safety and health (OSH) promotion initiatives. This presentation deals with piloting a pre-post intervention study in Denmark in 2020-2022. A multifaceted OSH promotion approach was developed and implemented in 12 small (<20 employees) dairy farms, which were randomly assigned to six intervention and six control farms. The data collection and intervention were carried out by a certified agriculture consultant after initial training from the project team. The data included OSH audits, a questionnaire, systematic observations and evaluation interviews. The observations focused on OSH in the various barns, herding, personnel behaviour, chemical safety, tools and machines. Questionnaire themes included safety climate and accident experience, and audit themes were in regards to OSH knowledge and organisation, risk assessment, safety rounds, and integration of OSH in regular activities. Following initial baseline measurements on all the farms, feedback on the baseline data was provided to the leaders and workers at an OSH meeting at each of the six intervention farms. Focus was on their OSH strengths and weaknesses, and tailored topics for improvement were discussed, with a focus on OSH attitudes and behaviours, as well as leadership and structured approaches. An action plan was agreed upon with the leaders, and was followed up by 4 telephone coaching sessions and 2 additional visits during the intervention period (7-11 months). In addition, each farm could be refunded up to €700 (covering 50% of total costs) for the OSH initiatives in their action plan, e.g. purchasing new equipment. Data collection was completed in January 2022, and pre and post comparisons are being carried out of the data, including nearly 8500 systematic observations, 170 questionnaires, audit and evaluation interviews. The results will be presented at the WOS22 conference.