Agriculturists and others in an agricultural environment are at high risk for mortality and morbidity associated with exposure to animals, machinery, and chemicals. Unfortunately, there appear to be several barriers to delivery of comprehensive agricultural health and safety education programs. The first of the barriers is the low interest in Utah for agricultural health and safety training programs that target adults. To date, research has not been conducted concerning adults' or minorities' needs for safety materials, although Extension agents have reported some interest in training programs for youth. Concerns about the quality and availability of youth health and safety information in the Utah agricultural community are well founded.
Limited resources are a second serious barrier to delivering health and safety information in Utah.
Finally, the need to address these serious problems leads to an environment of crisis management within the agricultural health and safety community. This, in turn, means a more limited focus on agricultural health and safety research and on education efforts. In spite of the identified need for safety education, many county Extension agents fail to include this type of comprehensive education in their programs as a result of these barriers. The purpose of the study reported here was to determine the beliefs and perceptions of Utah Extension educators about agricultural health and safety information needs. The specific objectives of the study were as follows.