National Centre for Farmer Health

The National Centre for Farmer Health (NCFH) is the result of a partnership between Deakin University and Western District Health Service. It provides regional and rural farming communities with five key services:

Professional training and education

Multidisciplinary undergraduate honours, postgraduate and professional development courses for GPs, nurses, allied health practitioners, paramedics, vets, and agricultural professionals.

Applied research and development

NCFH focuses on areas where research can make a difference in reducing disease and injury among farm men and women, agricultural workers and their families. One of the primary goals is to further investigate the identified health issues from earlier research and develop interventions that positively impact the lives of Australian farmers.

NCFH works with other academic institutions, health care providers and agricultural organisations to improve the quality, effectiveness, and appropriateness of health care.

Primary producers knowledge network (2020-2022)

This project will work with farmers, fishers and industry partners to co-design, develop and evaluate a website, social media platforms and capacity building activities to foster sustainable change across primary industries. The project will adopt a holistic primary prevention approach to address workplace-related factors impacting primary producers’ health, wellbeing and safety.

The Primary Producer Knowledge Network is a partnership with Western District Health Service, Deakin University, Griffith University, University of SA and Cath Cosgrove Consulting and is funded by WorkSafe’s WorkWell Mental Health Improvement Fund.

Injury risk and safety behaviours of children in rural Victoria (2020-2022)

The work explores the safety measures, risk-taking behaviours and common activities of children on farms, this research will gain a fresh and novel insight into the culture and perceptions around children on farms. Understanding common hazardous exposures will assist in the development of targeted interventions to improve child farm safety.

MH4Ag: Co-designing a peer-supported approach to improve mental health in rural farming communities

This project aims to develop a framework – working with farming community members and rural stakeholders – for the delivery of peer-supported, evidenced-based psychological therapy to farming community members experiencing depression or psychological/situational distress. To complement this, the project will also work with farmers and community stakeholders to develop a personal challenge ’action plan’ template for members of the farming community.

This project is funded by the Western Victoria Primary Health Network.

Online services

Information and tools directly helping farmers, their families and agricultural workers live healthy lives.

AgriSafe™ clinics

Innovative occupational health and safety clinics available for farm and agricultural workers.

Sustainable Farm Families™ programs

Improving the health, wellbeing and safety of farming families through evidence-based, interactive health promotion workshops, with an increasing emphasis on the dissemination of research results from the programs.