Breaking from tradition: embracing new strategies to implement agricultural safety and health programs

Implementing evidence-based programs is an essential component of public health, and one that often requires effective collaboration to achieve. This study focuses on partner engagement in employing media advocacy as an implementation strategy for a workplace safety and health program. This is a longitudinal, qualitative study. Members of the implementation team participated in interviews at two time points. The first was after being trained in and working to develop media advocacy strategies but before beginning media advocacy campaigns. Follow-up interviews were then conducted two years after media advocacy campaigns launched, just before the end of the funded study period. Findings demonstrate that while team members were positive about the intervention, the implementation method did not resonate with them. In follow-up interviews, team members pointed out that implementation was difficult due to the political and power contexts in each implementation setting. Due to these difficulties, the team showed generally limited engagement with the project, limiting fidelity to media advocacy principles. Further, during follow-up interviews, team members demonstrated a degree of cognitive dissonance, in which they praised the components of media advocacy, but continued to reject media advocacy as an overall strategy. This study emphasized the impact that cognitive biases can have on team development and collaboration. From it, the authors highlight the value of focusing on team building as much as project outcomes and recommend considerable investment in team development prior to engaging in implementation efforts.