Work Healthy/Trabajando Saludable: Providing bilingual primary health care at the worksite- Lessons learned

For nearly 35 years La Comunidad Hispana has been providing education, health care and social services to the Latino population in Southern Chester County Pennsylvania. This region is home to more than 100 mushroom farms. Many Latinos are employed in the industry, typically earning minimum wage with no health or other benefits and are ineligible for government-subsidized programs. Lack of access to health care and a genetic predisposition to specific health problems, such as obesity and diabetes, combine to create health vulnerabilities within the Latino immigrant community. In 2006, as part of a four-year grant provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and more than 10 local funding partners, the organization launched its Work Healthy program. The program is a bilingual workplace health initiative targeting 500 unduplicated Mexican immigrants per year working at three mushroom farms in Chester County. Work Healthy provides workplace primary care services and health and social service referrals; health education services; and peer support services using promotores. During this first year of implementation, LCH worked with the three mushroom farms to build health clinics. Within six months, each mushroom farm's clinic was fully operational and seeing patients. Initial data reveal that 80.4% of patient visits recorded a BMI of 25 or over and 97% of patients were uninsured.