Building research and communication collaboration to affect farmworker health and policy

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families are exposed to numerous environmental and occupational health hazards, and they experience high rates of injuries and illnesses. Efforts to document the health hazards that farmworkers experience have expanded. However, the involvement of farmworkers in the conduct of research that addresses their health hazards, and the communication of research results to farmworkers in forms that they can understand and use remains limited. This community-based participatory research (CBPR) project consists of a partnership between the Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN) and health scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSM). The project is based on two principles: 1) farmworkers and their community-based organizations should collaborate with health scientists in selecting and conducting research that addresses farmworker health; and 2) farmworkers should understand the results of biomedical and behavioral science so that they can better use this knowledge to improve their health and quality of life. We have implemented several strategies to address these principles. First, we have organized a series of workshops on research training needs identified by the farmworker community-based organizations. Second, workshops presented by community-organizations have taught academic health scientists approaches to select research topics and report research results in a manner that better informs policy discussion and farmworkers. Third, organizations serving farmworkers have implemented a program providing HIV/STI information to farmworkers that they requested in an appropriate format. This project has resulted in community-organizations and academic health scientists developing the infrastructure for continued research collaboration.