Health Disparities Between Migrant/Seasonal Farmworker Patients and General Community Patients Receiving Care at Federally-funded Health Centers

In 2008, 1080 Federally-funded Health Centers provided services to 17.1 million patients, including persons experiencing homelessness, migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) and their family members, residents of public housing, and members of the general community. During the fall of 2009, interviews were conducted with 4,600 Health Center patients of all ages from 112 Health Center organizations. Patients received questions about their perceived health, medical, dental and mental health conditions, care received, and socio-demographics. 831 interviews were completed with migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their family members and 2213 interviews were completed with general community patients. Patients were classified as migrant or seasonal farmworker patients if they had worked as a farmworker in the past 24 months or anyone in their family had been supported by someone who worked as a farmworker in the past 24 months. Migrant status was determined by asking respondents how many times they had moved in the past 12 months and how many of those moves were related to the work of someone in the family. Immigrant status and characteristics were determined by asking respondents if they were born in the United States and, if not, asking in what year they came to the United States and how long they had been in the United States. Overall, twenty percent of all respondents were born outside of the United States. About 5% of those had been in the U.S. 2 years or less, while about 16% had been in the U.S. for three to five years and more than 25% had been in the U.S. for six to ten years. More than 50% of MSFW respondents were born outside of the U.S. Preliminary survey results for MSFW patients were compared to those for patients who were members of the general community for select indicators of health and health care access. MSFW patients were more likely to report that their health was better than a year ago than were general community patients. Adult MSFW patients were less likely to report having had a routine physical in the past year than general community patients. However, female MSFW patients aged 18 and older were more likely to have had a pap test within the previous 3 years. MSFW patients were more likely to have seen a dentist within the past year than general community patients, but were much less likely than general community patients to have been tested for HIV.