A socio-ecological approach would not only teach individuals how to prevent and manage stress and farms but would incorporate all the following:
• Identify and integrate the roles of families, the community, organizations, and public policies in supporting farms and the family
• Develop a stronger position for the farm and family by building the capital of resilience and the ability to apply the processes of resilience
• Develop support and actions through the public policy arena
Responding to stressors among farmers and farm family members is typically thought of as personal. Responses move into the public arena when impacts go beyond the family to farm businesses, communities, organizations, and policies. The farming population can advocate for policies and supports to maintain their health and that of their farm business. Evidence of the public nature is found in headlines and stories carried by mass media and political cartoons. Since 2017, multiple reports about farms and farmers under stress and suicides have publicized the situation. Solutions need to come internally to individuals and families and externally from communities and beyond. Figure 5 illustrates the interrelated nature of multiple systems in a socio-ecology model. What differentiates this model from others is the addition by the authors of the farm as a system. We added this environment to illustrate how farmers and farm families are embedded in a farming system and how the farm is embedded in community, organizational, and policy environments. Years of human stress and health research point to the need to combine simultaneously teaching individuals and families how to manage stress, enabling professionals and community members to provide support, and adopting public policies that address external environments that produce distress (Braun, 2019). The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) encourages the use of a social-ecological model to permit a multi- systems approach to change (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021; Honeycutt et al., 2015). A multi-systems approach can provide a framework for considering options for preventing and mitigating stressors and reducing distress.
49
Powered by FlippingBook