Rapporteur Report

SUMMARY

This paper is a report of the mental health breakout session held at the Third Annual NIOSH Agricultural Health and Safety Conference in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 24-26, 1996. The following presentations were made: Theresa Reis from Eastern Washington University, Farm Stressors Related to Farm Injury; Robert Scarth from The University of Iowa, Depression and Risk Factors Among Iowa Farmers; and Ann Stromquist from The University of Iowa, Keokuk County Rural Health Study: Depression and Factors Associated with Depression Among Farm, Rural Nonfarm, and Town Residents     

Rapporteur Report: ICNIRP international workshop on EMF dosimetry and biophysical aspects relevant to setting exposure guidelines

The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection has commenced the revision of its EMF guidelines in the frequency range up to 300 GHz. The ICNIRP International EMF Dosimetry Workshop has brought together a range of scientists to discuss the basis of the existing guidelines and to highlight those areas where attention needs to be given. This report is an attempt to extract the key messages from each of the presentations. A tabulation of the important issues discussed in the summary and conclusion session is provided at the end of this report.     

Report

Household food procurement strategies, preservation methods and intake frequency of contemporary and traditional foods were examined in the Eastern Cherokee township of Snowbird. In addition to purchasing food, 98.6 percent of households obtained food using traditional acquisition strategies such as gardening and gathering wild foods. Home food preservation was practiced in 97.2 percent of homes. Most common preservation methods were canning, freezing and drying. Estimates of food intake frequency indicate a variety of foods were eaten in Snowbird homes. Types of foods consumed were similar to those for the general United States population. However, native Cherokee foods were part of this group's diet.     

Up-to-Date Report

One important starting point for the field of health communication was the Stanford Heart Disease Prevention Program, a multiyear community intervention that began 25 years ago. Health communication is a specialty field of communication study that includes the media agenda-setting process for health issues; media advocacy for health; scientific communication among biomedical scientists; doctor-patient communication; and, particularly, the design and evaluation of preventive health communication campaigns, the focus of this article. Health communication study today is a well-established, expanding specialty in the United States and abroad.