LAUSR

Although infographics have been used by health educators and professionals for a long time, less is known about their application in agricultural health and safety programs. Infographics present evidencebased information using vivid data visualization, text, pictures; and in the case of motion graphics, audio, and animation. The increased popularity of infographics in the last few decades may be attributed to the rise of social media and the fact that we process visual content much faster than text and numbers. The purpose of this commentary is to describe three infographic formats used in our programs and to share best practices for agricultural health and safety outreach with young adults. Examples of these formats are shown in Figure 1. Traditional agricultural health and safety programs may include lengthy presentations, text, or guidebooks–especially when considering topics such as pesticide application safety and respiratory protection. It may be more effective to break some of this complex information up into smaller pieces. The inclusion of more infographics for both in-person and online agricultural health and safety programs is appealing because it has potential to strengthen learning, participation, and content memory. Infographics appeal to a broader range of learning styles since they incorporate the use of visual, writing, and auditory components. Although longer training manuals are useful for reference purposes, safety educators are interested in strategies to effectively condense the information during in-person discussions to enhance material retention. In the years to come, we expect greater transition to online agricultural safety and health learning (e.g., yearly recertification training requirements for pesticide applicators), particularly as “e-learning” became a useful strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Infographics can easily fit into self-paced online modules or shared via social media. A previous study found that social media posts about livestock agriculture containing infographics tended to elicit more reactions, comments, shares, and reach compared to posts containing webpage links or photos alone. Currently, there are three types of infographics commonly used for outreach purposes, including the static (print) infographic, the motion graphic, and the interactive infographic.