A Community Education and Intervention Program for Level Crossing Risk Management in Australia

This project aims to design, implement and evaluate a community road safety program using an intervention and control community methodology. It is a 3-year national project funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Railway Engineering and Technologies in Australia. With level crossing accidents constituting a significant proportion of death and injury associated with rail operations the need to conduct research in level crossing safety is warranted. To date, there has been little research conducted in Australia that evaluates community road safety programs targeting level crossing safety as well as identifying impediments towards the development of safe level crossing behaviour

Economic impact of growing Phomopsis-resistant lupins

The planting of Phomopsis-resistant lupins will increase net farm income. They will also alter the traditional blend of pastures and cropping, depending on grain and wool prices. In mixed farming areas of Western Australia\u27s southern wheatbelt, they will allow more land to be sown to lupins rather than cereals on farms in which the lack of sheep feed over summer severely restricts wool production. The benefits of Phompsis-resistant lupins arise from a reduction in sheep deaths due to lupinosis, a longer safe grazing period (free from lupinosis) on lupin stubbles, a decrease in the need for supplementary sheep feed over summer, improvements in sheep body weight (and possibly wool growth), and increases in harvested gran yield. Farmers should prepare now for this major shift in farm management

Winners and Losers: Formula versus Competitive Funding of Agricultural Research

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, O3, O4, Q16,

Winners and Losers: Formula versus Competitive Funding of Agricultural Research

State Agricultural Experiment Stations (SAESs) were established with federal formula funding by the Hatch Act of 1887. In 1955, the Hatch Act was amended and a number of subsequent formula funding programs were consolidated under the USDA Cooperative States Research Service (CSRS), which today is known as the Cooperative Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES). Currently, all of the Hatch funds and a small amount of other formula funds go to SAESs. In 1977, CSRS established its first competitive research grant program. However, this program remained quite small until 1990, when it was re-named the National Research Initiative (NRI) Competitive Grants Program with a much larger funding authorization. Currently, the SAESs account for 60% of U.S. public agricultural research, with 7% of SAESs funding obtained from Hatch funds and 2.3% from NRI Grant funds (Huffman & Evenson, 2006b, pp. 107, 117- 118). Hence, the SAES system has become relatively diversified in its funding sources after starting with only Hatch funding

Pilot evaluation of the Text4Baby mobile health program

Background Mobile phone technologies for health promotion and disease prevention have evolved rapidly, but few studies have tested the efficacy of mobile health in full-fledged programs. Text4baby is an example of mobile health based on behavioral theory, and it delivers text messages to traditionally underserved pregnant women and new mothers to change their health, health care beliefs, practices, and behaviors in order to improve clinical outcomes. The purpose of this pilot evaluation study is to assess the efficacy of this text messaging campaign. Methods We conducted a randomized pilot evaluation study. All participants were pregnant women first presenting for care at the Fairfax County, Virginia Health Department. We randomized participants to enroll in text4baby and receive usual health care (intervention), or continue simply to receive usual care (control). We then conducted a 24-item survey by telephone of attitudes and behaviors related to text4baby. We surveyed participants at baseline, before text4baby was delivered to the intervention group, and at follow-up at approximately 28 weeks of baby’s gestational age. Results We completed 123 baseline interviews in English and in Spanish. Overall, the sample was predominantly of Hispanic origin (79.7%) with an average age of 27.6 years. We completed 90 follow-up interviews, and achieved a 73% retention rate. We used a logistic generalized estimating equation model to evaluate intervention effects on measured outcomes. We found a significant effect of text4baby intervention exposure on increased agreement with the attitude statement “I am prepared to be a new mother” (OR = 2.73, CI = 1.04, 7.18, p = 0.042) between baseline and follow-up. For those who had attained a high school education or greater, we observed a significantly higher overall agreement to attitudes against alcohol consumption during pregnancy (OR = 2.80, CI = 1.13, 6.90, p = 0.026). We also observed a significant improvement of attitudes toward alcohol consumption from baseline to follow-up (OR = 3.57, CI = 1.13 – 11.24, p = 0.029). Conclusions This pilot study is the first randomized evaluation of text4baby. It is a promising program in that exposure to the text messages was associated with changes in specific beliefs targeted by the messages