Chronic agricultural chemical exposure among migrant and seasonal farmworkers

The consequences of agricultural pesticide exposure continue to be major environmental health problems in rural communities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an important approach to redressing health disparities resulting from environmental causes. In this article we introduce a collection of articles that describe projects using CBPR to address the health disparities resulting from pesticide exposure in agricultural communities, particularly the communities of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. The articles in this collection are based on a workshop convened at the 1999 American Public Health Association meeting. The goals in presenting this collection are to provide those endeavoring to initiate CBPR projects needed information, guidelines, and procedures to improve the quality of the CBPR experience; to increase the scientific validity of CBPR projects; and to reduce the potential difficulties and stress of these collaborations. In this introduction we discuss the context in which these projects operate, summarizing background information about farmworkers in the United States, what is known about farmworker pesticide exposure, and the concept of community-based participatory research. Finally, the articles in this collection are summarized, and major themes common to successful CBPR projects are identified. These common features are taking the time to interact with the community, using multiple approaches to engage the different parts of the community, understanding different participants often have different goals, appreciating each group's strengths, valuing community knowledge, and being flexible and creative in conducting research. The final article in this collection describes the translational research program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) highlighting activities pertinent to the health of rural communities, giving an overview of NIEHS-supported projects addressing health concerns of Native Americans and rural African-American communities in addition to farmworkers, and discussing future plans for CBPR at NIEHS.

Section: Farmworker Pesticide Exposure and Health Effectsmentioning

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Farmworker pesticide exposure and community-based participatory research: rationale and practical applications.

Arcury

Quandt

Dearry

2001

“…Farmworkers, among others, risk high exposure to pesticides (1,2). Nevertheless, few studies have examined health effects of pesticide exposure among farmworkers (2).…”

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Recruiting a community sample in collaboration with farmworkers.

Kamel

Moreno

Rowland

et al. 2001

Few studies have examined health effects of pesticides in farmworkers, possibly because researchers perceive this population to be relatively inaccessible. We conducted an epidemiologic study of health effects among farmworkers in two towns in central Florida--Apopka and Pierson. Apopka is a suburb of Orlando with a diffuse farmworker community working in many crops, whereas Pierson is a small rural town with a tightly knit farmworker community working mainly in ferns. We collaborated with the Farmworker Association of Florida, a grassroots organization representing 6,700 farmworker families. We identified potential participants using membership lists of the Community Trust Federal Credit Union. Members of the Farmworker Association served as recruiters for the study, locating randomly selected Credit Union members and administering a screening interview to determine eligibility. In Apopka 90% of contacted workers were screened, and 79% of eligible workers participated in the study; corresponding proportions in Pierson were 94 and 85%. Farmworkers who had worked for 6-15 years and those who worked in a defined type of agriculture (nursery, citrus, or ferns) were more likely to enroll than others. Thus, while the response rate was good for a multistage recruiting process, study participants had a slightly different work history from those who chose not to enroll. We conclude that it is possible to conduct a study of health outcomes in farmworkers with a defined population and good response rates. Collaboration with the community is essential to the success of such a project, and community characteristics can affect response rates.

“…Workers in all agricultural industries experience dermal, oral, and respiratory contact with a variety of pesticides known to be harmful to humans (5,6). This exposure can result in a variety of acute symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, nausea, and shortness of breath, and health problems such as asthma, dermatitis, and acute pesticide poisoning (5,(7)(8)(9)(10). Animal and some human studies have shown pesticides can also have chronic effects on the neurologic, respiratory, immune, and reproductive systems and can be carcinogenic and mutagenic (2,(11)(12)(13)(14).…”

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Implementing a community-based social marketing project to improve agricultural worker health.

Flocks

Clarke

Albrecht

et al. 2001

The Together for Agricultural Safety project is a community-based social marketing project working to reduce the adverse health effects of pesticide exposure among fernery and nursery workers in Florida. In 3 years, the collaboration between university and community researchers has embodied many of the principles of community-based research while completing multiple stages of formative data collection required for a social marketing project. This hybrid approach to developing a health intervention for a minority community has been successful in its early stages because the community partners are organized, empowered, and motivated to execute research activities with the assistance of academic partners. However, this work has also been labor intensive and costly. This article describes the lessons learned by project partners and considers the limitations of this approach for agricultural health research.