Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Vickie D. Krenz, PhD, MSPH¹, Martha Zarate, BS², and Eric Krenz, PhD¹. (1) Health Science, California State University, Fresno, 2345 E. San Ramon, Fresno, CA 93720, 559-278-2684, vickik@csufresno.edu, (2) Rural Tobacco Prevention Program, Fresno County Economic Opportunities Commission, 1900 Mariposa Mall, Fresno, CA 93721

The rural Fresno County region is the largest agricultural producer in the nation, with a high Hispanic/Latino labor force and low cost of living. Census data indicate that the Hispanic/Latino population exceeds 85% in many of the rural cities. The goal of the Rural Tobacco Prevention Program was to reduce the impact of tobacco in rural Fresno through the adoption of smoke-free policies in packing houses employing immigrants/migrants. A quasi-experimental design was utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of the outcome objectives. Two intact packing houses were randomly (simple) assigned to the intervention group and two intact packing houses were assigned to the control groups. The data collected to measure the intervention outcomes included structured interviews with key individuals and employee “public opinion” surveys. A total of 177 surveys were completed by community residents (52.0% females and 48.0% males), with a mean age of 31.3 years. Only 48 (38.1%) were aware of a smoke-free policy, however none of the respondents could identify the terms of the policy. Non-smokers were more likely to be aware of a smoke-free policy (p=.038) and 126 (71.2%) of the participants indicated support a smoke-free policy. The “public” opinion survey results indicated that the respondents strongly supported the adoption of a policy to ban smoking within 25 feet of packing house entrances. These findings were presented to packing house management in support of the adoption of smoke-free workplace policy. As a result, two of the packing houses adopted a policy to totally prohibit smoking in packing houses.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Identify barriers to the implementation of smoke-free policies for agricultural packing houses.
• Describe successful strategies for implementing smoke-free policies in agricultural packing houses.
• Discuss Latino agricultural laborers' perceptions of smoke-free policies for the packing house workplace.

Keywords: Tobacco Policy, Latinos

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered