Achieving Equity in Farmworker Health Through Community-Led Research

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ABSTRACT Farmworkers in Yuma, Arizona, and across the nation face numerous social and health risks stemming from the nature of farmwork and the labor laws that govern it. Farmwork is physically punishing and low-wage labor, with extremely long days, environmental exposures, and no overtime or sick pay. Few farmworkers have health insurance. The seasonal nature of farmwork results in record levels of summer unemployment, increasing the economic stress on farmworkers and their families. As a result, farmworkers suffer from high work-related injury and illness rates, stress and depression, and chronic disease. Building on decades of service to the farmworker community, Campesinos Sin Fronteras (CSF) will use a community-based participatory research approach to develop, implement and evaluate an intervention addressing structural factors related to 1) labor practices; 2) housing quality and affordability; and 3) health care access for the farmworker community. In the Achieving Equity in Farmworker Health project, in collaboration with an academic research partner, CSF will leverage its existing relationships with diverse, multi-sector organizations to convene a health equity research assembly (HERA) that will oversee all aspects of the research process. CSF Community health workers (CHWs) will enlist farmworkers in the research process through a series of participatory engagement strategies. Community-wide changes in structural factors and health outcomes will be evaluated using community-led and participant-responsive qualitative and quantitative methods. In analyzing structural determinants of health and developing and implementing the intervention, HERA members will build their research capacity and structural competence in addressing health issues among farmworkers.