Heat-related illness and farmworker’s health: Climate change and precarious employment

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ABSTRACT The Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease (M-LEEaD) Core Center (P30), funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), is based at the University of Michigan and is organized around the theme of critical windows of susceptibility to environmental exposures as important determinants of disease. Its mission is to accelerate research that defines impacts of environmental exposures during vulnerable stages of life, and to translate those findings to improve medical and public health interventions. The goal of this diversity supplement to M-LEEaD is to conduct epidemiological research to study the impact of heat related illness (HRI) on the health of farmworkers. Extreme heat events are increasing in the United States (US) in frequency, intensity, and duration. Analysis from a 15 year period (1992-2006) showed that the heat-related average annual death rate for agricultural crop workers was 0.39 per 100,000 workers, compared with 0.02 for the US civilian population. As climate change causes temperatures to continue to rise, heat waves are expected to become more frequent and severe in the coming decades. This is a public health concern for US farmworkers—primarily Latinos(as) working under precarious working conditions and impacted by a wide range of chronic diseases, social and economic factors that may exacerbate their vulnerability to heat-related illnesses. Precarious employment for farmworkers--and the resulting inequitably distributed environmental exposures—is a key social determinant of health with implications for environmental justice. Our specific aims are: (1) To examine cross-sectional associations of employment-based risk factors for HRI and cardiovascular disease using qualitative data from the Michigan Farmworker project and conducting a systematic literature review to identify employment-based risk factors for HRI and health. Then, quantitative analysis will be conducted using data from the National Agricultural Worker Survey (NAWS 1999-2018) to assess its association with self-reported data on cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension and diabetes) collected in NAWS, (2) To assess nationwide trend analysis in fatality rates due to HRI in farmworkers (1992 – 2020) using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) and data on heat-related deaths identified in the CFOI as an exposure and calculate fatality rates among farmworkers nationwide. Using national and publicly available meteorological data, we will assess the correlation of heat waves with fatalities in farmworkers during the same time-period, (3) To develop dissemination materials for farmworkers based on findings in Aim 1 and 2 by using “policy briefs” in English and Spanish through a social media platform that provides accessible scientific information in environmental health and justice in the context of the findings of the proposed study. The proposed supplement is aligned with the mission of the M-LEEaD center with the central goal to further scientific knowledge on the environmental and occupational health impact of precarious employment in farmworkers.