Florence Becot

Nationwide Insurance Early Career Professor of Agricultural Safety and Health – Lead of the Agricultural Safety and Health Program. Pennsylvania State University – United States.

I am a rural sociologist with a research program focused on the health, well-being, safety, and economic viability of farm families. My work first considers the ways in which difficulties meeting social needs such as health care, childcare, or aging, expand beyond the confines of the personal sphere and can have direct implications on the farm including the adoption of farm safety practices and farm business development.
Directly tied to farm households’ ability to meet their social needs, my work also explores the availability and types of social supports, including crisis support, as well as the role of these support systems in supporting farm households and their farm business.
I earned my PhD from the Ohio State University and was previously a researcher at the University of Vermont Center for Rural Studies and the National Farm Medicine Center.

Contact:

Room 251,101 Ag Engineering Building
University Park, PA 16802 – United States
001-814-865-1783
becot.florence[at]psu[dot]edu

Publications

Becot, F., Inwood, S., and Rissing, A. 2022. Childcare for farm families: A key strategy to keep children safe yet largely absent from farm programming. Frontiers in Public Health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1043774

Becot, F. 2022. Children, work, and safety on the farm during COVID-19: A harder juggling act. Journal of Agromedicine, 27(3), 315-328. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1059924X.2022.2068716

Becot, F. and Inwood, S. 2022. Medical economic vulnerability: A next step in expanding the farm resilience scholarship. Agriculture and Human Values, 39, 1097-1116 1-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10307-4

Henning-Smith, C., Alberth, A., Bjornestad, A., Becot, F., and Inwood, S. 2021. Farmer Mental Health in the US Midwest: Key Informant Perspectives. Journal of Agromedicine. 27(1), 15-24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1059924X.2021.1893881

Becot, F. and Inwood, S. 2022. The case for integrating household social needs and social policy into the international family farm research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies, 77, 185-198. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.05.005