Citation

Spears CR, Summers PY, Spencer KM, Arcury TA. J. Agromed. 2012; 17(4): 415-420.

Affiliation

Department of Family and Community Medicine, and the Center for Worker Health , Wake Forest School of Medicine , Winston-Salem , North Carolina , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/1059924X.2012.713830

PMID

22994643

Abstract

Latino farmworkers in North Carolina are a hard-to-reach population that faces diverse occupational health risks, including pesticide exposure. Health and safety education efforts often employ lay health advisor or promotor(a) de salud models in which farmworker community members are trained to provide health education. As a frequently tight-knit and isolated group, farmworkers may be well suited to serve as resident lay health advisors. This paper presents data collected from a nonrandom sample of Latino farmworkers living in North Carolina regarding the natural level of occupational safety information exchange among Latino farmworkers, specifically pesticide safety information. The data affirm that farmworkers informally exchange occupational safety information with one another, with the level of exchange increasing during the agricultural season. Consequently, if trained, the data suggest that farmworkers might be situated to provide in situ occupational health and safety education to their peers. This remains to be systematically tested and evaluated.

Language: en