A Handwashing Educational Toolkit: The Product of a Dynamic Partnership among a Student, Faculty Member, and Community Organization

Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach, University of Georgia and the Institute of Higher Education. Treanor House, 1234 South Lumpkin Street, Athens, GA 30602. Tel: 706-542-6167; Fax: 706-542-6124; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe

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Hygiene; Human Body; Occupational Safety and Health; Health Education; Partnerships in Education; College Faculty; Community Organizations; Herbicides; Poisoning; Agricultural Occupations; Hazardous Materials; School Community Programs; Sustainability; Land Grant Universities; Outreach Programs; Toxicology; Instructional Materials; Doctoral Students; Migrant Workers

1534-6102

Pesticide exposure represents a significant occupational health hazard for farmworkers, and handwashing is one strategy to reduce exposure via the dermal route. After learning about recent research findings regarding the lack of handwashing utilized by North Carolina farmworkers in the field, the North Carolina Farmworker Health Program approached the student and faculty member who conducted the research to partner and improve handwashing education, with the goal of reducing pesticide exposure among farmworkers. The resulting handwashing educational toolkit was the product of a participatory development project that engaged farmworker health outreach workers with university partners in every stage--from needs assessment to method and message selection and, ultimately, educational material development and evaluation. This promising project serves as a model for a sustainable partnership among a student, faculty member, and community organization and underscores the importance of respect, equality, and distributed power in collaboratively responding to a community-identified need.

As Provided

2019

EJ1229781