News

MRASH Conference now accepting abstracts

Published on June 15, 2022

The MRASH Conference is now accepting abstracts! This year, people can participate and present

  • live and in-person in Cedar Rapids,
  • online via Zoom from anywhere in the world, or
  • pre-recorded on our conference website.

There are two different types of abstract submission forms this year, both accessible from our MRASH Conference website.

  1. Concurrent Sessions: Due August 1. This includes our traditional oral presentations (20 minute presentation with 10 minutes of Q&A) and roundtable sessions (30 minutes from multiple presenters around a specific topic with 30 minutes of discussion) that take place during the breakout session portion of our program. These can be in-person, live via Zoom or pre-recorded and posted on our conference website.
  2. Taster Sessions: Due October 15. We are excited about this replacing our usual “poster reception”! Abstracts for posters (following the #betterposter guidelines) will still be accepted, but we want everyone to put on their creative thinking caps and come up with innovative ways to give conference attendees a taste of their work. We have listed some possibilities (flashtalks, demonstrations, photo essays, etc.) but encourage you to think of new ideas to get your main point across to people in engaging and interactive formats.

Need ideas? Abstracts topic can be any research or outreach project relevant to rural or agricultural safety and health. Abstracts focusing on emerging issues and evidence-based practices are highly encouraged. Attendees at last year’s conference told us they would like to hear more about:

• issues faced by marginalized farming populations,
• health and safety in specialty and non-traditional farming
• environmental aspects impacting farmers (climate change, air and water quality, sun exposure)
• how chronic conditions impact toxicity and other risks
• pesticide safety
• poisonous and non-poisonous bites
• mental health and stress

Our keynote session will include information about current trends in both agriculture and in health via resources on our website and a virtual keynote ahead of the conference. We will continue the theme at the conference with discussion of the significance of those trends for the safety and health of farm families and farm workers, taking a look at what we are doing well and what we may need to re-imagine.

More details will be added to our website as they become available. We anticipate registration opening by mid September. Hope to see you all in November!

In the meantime, if you have questions, feel free to contact gayle-olson@uiowa.edu.
Gayle Olson, MS, CHES
Assistant to the Director
Iowa’s Center for Agricultural Safety and Health
University of Iowa

Phone 319-931-1351