Effects of sending region on farm worker health care access and utilization: Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey

Based on data collected from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), about 70 percent of U.S. crop workers are Mexican immigrants. Mexico-born farm workers have traditionally come from the West-Central region, comprising the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacan. However, over the past 17 years, a new region has supplied an increasing share of workers. Between 1991 and 2007, the share of Mexico-born workers coming from the Southern-Pacific region, comprising Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, increased from seven to 20 percent. This paper examines and compares the demographic and employment characteristics of the workers from these two regions and also explores the relationship between these characteristics with health care access and utilization rates. The data analyzed for this presentation are from the NAWS, a national random sample survey of hired crop farm workers that has included information on state-of-origin since 1991. From 1991-2007, a total of 32,033 Mexican immigrant workers were interviewed. Of these, 45 percent were from the West-Central region, 14 percent from the Southern-Pacific region and the remainder from other areas in Mexico. The demographics of the farm workers from these two regions are affected not only by the maturity of the migration networks but also by differences in the ethnic composition of these two regions, with West-Central Mexico being primarily mestizo and the Southern-Pacific region having higher concentrations of the indigenous population. Finally, this paper will examine how demographic and employment factors affect access to and use of health care services in the United States.