BACKGROUND: Maine designed and piloted a project to educate youth involved in agriculture about One Health. The project provides direct instruction to youth concerning the diseases that may be transmitted between animals and humans, the signs and symptoms to watch out for, and prevention methods to reduce transmission. The long-term goal of this project is to improve awareness of One Health in youth, and reduce transmission of zoonotic illnesses including influenza and enterics.
METHODS: Maine DACF identified and recruited three 4-H groups for participation in the pilot project based on number of members and level of activity in youth agriculture events. Components of the youth agriculture pilot project included: a) pre- and post-testing to gauge student content knowledge b) a presentation about zoonotic diseases, transmission, and prevention c) hands-on activities d) activity booklets and take-home fact sheets. A student intern delivered the presentation and the state veterinarian, a Maine CDC epidemiologist, and the intern led the student activities. The intern designed the activities to reinforce core content knowledge and the activities included: a card game, a build your own pathogen activity, and an interactive handwashing station.
RESULTS: Maine CDC and DACF analyzed pre- and post-test scores from participating youth in all groups to determine a demonstrated content knowledge gain. Participants improved their scores on most questions. The most significant improvements were in how long you should wash your hands (55.9%) and where you are most likely to get crypto (46.0%). The question about which enteric illness comes from poultry showed a decrease (-5.3%). Four questions were answered correctly on the post-test by more than 80% of participants.
CONCLUSIONS: Participating youth demonstrated an improvement in their knowledge about One Health, zoonotic diseases, biosecurity, and prevention. There is room for improvement in ensuring that learning objectives are met both during the presentation and retained as demonstrated in the post-test. There was great concern over the difficulty of the pre/post tests, as even some of the facilitators found the test hard. This is one aspect that will be completely revised before this project is launched publically to ensure the questions are easily understandable at all age groups and reflect the objectives of the program. Keeping small groups during group activities may also help facilitators maintain engagement. With larger groups it was difficult to keep attention and keep all the youth busy and involved.