Increasing use of personal protective equipment among low acculturated farmworkers: A role for the EPA

Background: Agricultural harvest workers are a vulnerable, primarily Mexican-origin population who experience substantial pesticide exposure.  Evidence strongly indicates that when harvest workers wear personal protective equipment (PPE), exposures to pesticides are substantially reduced.  However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Worker Protection Standard does not require employers to provide PPE to harvest workers.  Our study, ¡Protejase!,examined if provision of PPE is associated with increased use over time among pilot intervention participants.  Moreover, we explored if acculturation played a mediating role in the relationship between PPE use, provision, safety training.  Methods: Six OLS regression models used Provided PPE_Time1, Not Provided PPE_Time1, Provided PPE_Time2, Not Provided PPE_Time2, Change in Provided PPE and Change in Not Provided PPE as dependent variables. Results: At Time 1, low language acculturation is significantly associated (p<.05) with decreased use of provided PPE (shirts, glasses, gloves). This relationship remains significant even when we control for income, gender and number of years working in agriculture. By Time 2, participants with low language acculturation had an average PPE use rating of 4.5 or almost always wearing shirts, gloves and glasses. Conclusions: Among low acculturation farmworkers, provision was successful in significantly increasing the use of PPE.  Our study highlights that more stringent standards, such as requiring the employer provision of PPE for harvest workers, would provide the essential tools for a safer work environment that also influence additional health behaviors of agricultural workers.