Farm-related injury event, social consequences and injury reporting in the Land Lantbruk newspaper in Sweden: a retrospective study of farm-related injury reporting during 2000-2005.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the present study was to detect how a leading news paper, the Land Lantbruk in Stockholm, Sweden, informs the public and specifically the rural sector in Sweden and the Scandinavian countries concerning injury events (farm-related injury event) and the use of injury prevention and control. Injury reporting in the Land Lantbruk has been studied from the point of injury prevention and control. A study of injury prevention and rural health and safety in Australia shows that the newspaper The Land that serves Australia's rural community should 'be an under-utilised vehicle for news and commentary on rural health and safety issues'.


METHODS
The study period was from January 2000 to February 2005. A total of 178 articles were reviewed and analysed. The articles were available on a newspaper database in the Land Lantbruk newspaper. Articles that addressed farm-related injury event and rural health and safety were chosen and organised into subgroups.


RESULTS
Tractor and motor vehicle safety (35%) was most common among the injury reporting. Although the newspaper Land Lantbruk provided excellent coverage of the causes of these events, the reports tended to focus on circumstances and did not provide information on injury prevention or the advantages of also coverage of the social and psychosocial long-term consequences of accidents.


CONCLUSIONS
In the prevention work of reducing farm-related injuries in the rural sector in the Scandinavian countries and decreasing the human suffering represented by this health problem, rural politicians, insurance companies, rural authorities and also handicap organisations should listen more to the injured individuals and their own experiences relative to the difficulty of life after an accident. The reaction of family and relatives, and experiences of the long-term social consequences, have not been included in the media coverage. Journalists at the Land Lantbruk could also share experiences of the Swedish coverage of rural health and safety from Australian journalists from The Land.
Lundälv
Jörgen
J
Department of Social Work, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden.
D000056:Accident Prevention; D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000639:trends*; D000383:Agriculture / Q000639:trends*; D017281:Cost of Illness; D004180:Direct Service Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D018156:Journalism, Medical; D008402:Mass Media / Q000639:trends; D009524:Newspapers as Topic / Q000639:trends*; D011159:Population Surveillance; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012107:Research Design / Q000639:trends; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012423:Rural Health; D017751:Safety Management; D012941:Social Responsibility; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control