The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #66315

Nannette Stamm, MPH (c)¹, Alicia L. Salvatore, MPH¹, Diego Vasquez², Ana Vargas², Jose Camacho², Lupita Perez-Garnica², Jesus Lopez³, Asa Bradman, PhD⁴, and Brenda Eskenazi, PhD⁴. (1) Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS), UC Berkeley, School of Public Health, 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 600, Berkeley, CA 94720, (831) 642-9081, nlstamm@uclink.berkeley.edu, (2) CHAMACOS, 1441 Constitution Blvd., Salinas, CA 93906, (3) California Rural Legal Assistance, 3 Williams Rd., Salinas, CA 93905, (4) Center for Children's Environmental Health Research, University of California, Berkeley, 2150 Shattuck Ave, Suite 600, Berkeley, CA 94720-7380

The Center for Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) is a community-university partnership investigating the environment and children's health in the Salinas Valley, California, an area thtat employs approximately 35,000 farmworkers annually. In order to develop culturally appropriate and acceptable protective clothing options and health education for a field-based technical intervention aimed at reducing take-home pesticide exposure to farmworker children, CHAMACOS conducted a work-based pilot study with Mexican migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the Salinas Valley. The selection of protective clothing, gloves, and soaps for the pilot test was an interative process involving feedback from experts, CHAMACOS Farmworker Council members, and male and female farmworkers. A sample of thirty farmworkers were recruited to test and provide feedback regarding their past and current experiences using protective clothing, gloves, and soaps. Participants were surveyed daily in the fields over a three week period. This presentation will overview the process of developing and conducting a protective clothing pilot and survey research with farmworkers in the fields. Quantitative and qualitative data to be presented will include farmworkers' perceptions of barriers and benefits, field-based social norms, and facilitating factors associated with protective clothing use and handwashing. In addition, farmworker recommendations for health education and provision of protective clothing will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of this session, a participant in this session will be able to: 1)Discuss the implications of this pilot study for culturally appropriate worker safety; 2)Develop an understanding of the challenging and facilitating factors associated with conducting work-site survey research with farmworkers; 3)Evaluate possible options for addressing identified challenges.

Keywords: Agricultural Work Safety, Pesticide Exposure

Related Web page: www.chamacos.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.