Promoting Occupational Safety and Health of Indigenous Farmworkers

The Promoting the Occupational Health of the Indigenous Farmworkers Project is an on-going community based participatory effort funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Project partners include Oregon Law Center, Salud Medical Center, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noreste (Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United), Portland State University School Community Health, and Farmworker Justice. The project assessed indigenous farmworkers' occupational health and safety needs and knowledge and developed a peer education (promotores) training to reduce farmworkers' exposure to pesticides and other occupational health concerns. Project evaluation included baseline and follow-up surveys administered to Spanish and indigenous speaking participants by multilingual indigenous community educators. Special emphasis during analysis was given to differences between Latino and indigenous responses.

Findings at follow-up indicate that differences related to language barriers during receipt of medical services and at work exist between indigenous and Latino workers. Indigenous respondents were less likely to have physicians able to speak their native languages, less likely to have interpreters provided, and more likely to report experiences of discrimination at work due to speaking a native language. Additional findings indicate differences in preferred modes of information dissemination between respondent groups. Indigenous respondents were more likely to attend church, less likely to watch TV daily, and less likely to report never listening to the radio. In comparisons between baseline and follow-up measurements, differences existed between groups in regards to reported pesticide exposures and frequency and adequacy of pesticides safety training methods.