Latino Farmworkers in the Eastern United States Thomas A. Arcury (cid:129) Sara A. Quandt Editors Latino Farmworkers in the Eastern United States Health, Safety and Justice Editors Thomas A. Arcury, Ph.D. Sara A. Quandt, Ph.D. Department of Family Department of Epidemiology and Prevention and Community Medicine Division of Public Health Sciences Wake Forest University School of Medicine Wake Forest University School of Medicine Winston-Salem, NC 27157 Winston-Salem, NC 27157 USA USA ISBN: 978-0-387-88346-5 e-ISBN: 978-0-387-88347-2 DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-88347-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008942080 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identifi ed as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper springer.com Contents 1 The Health and Safety of Farmworkers in the Eastern United States: A Need to Focus on Social Justice ................................ 1 Thomas A. Arcury and Sara A. Quandt 2 Latino/Hispanic Farmworkers and Farm Work in the Eastern United States: The Context for Health, Safety, and Justice ............... 15 Thomas A. Arcury and Antonio J. Marín 3 The Condition of Farmworker Housing in the Eastern United States .................................................................. 37 Quirina M. Vallejos, Sara A. Quandt, and Thomas A. Arcury 4 Occupational Injury and Illness in Farmworkers in the Eastern United States .................................................................. 71 John J. May 5 Pesticide Exposure Among Farmworkers and Their Families in the Eastern United States: Matters of Social and Environmental Justice ..................................................................... 103 Thomas A. Arcury and Sara A. Quandt 6 Tuberculosis, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, HIV, and Other Infections Among Farmworkers in the Eastern United States .................................................................. 131 Scott D. Rhodes 7 Mental Health Among Farmworkers in the Eastern United States ............................................................................................ 153 Joseph G. Grzywacz 8 Health of Children and Women in the Farmworker Community in the Eastern United States ............................................. 173 Sara A. Quandt v vi Contents 9 Farm Labor and the Struggle for Justice in the Eastern United States ............................................................................................ 201 Melinda F. Wiggins 10 Conclusions: An Agenda for Farmworker Social Justice in the Eastern United States .................................................................. 221 Thomas A. Arcury, Melinda F. Wiggins, and Sara A. Quandt Index ................................................................................................................. 235 Contributors Thomas A. Arcury, Ph.D., is a Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC. He received his doctoral degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Kentucky in 1983 and completed a postdoc- toral fellowship in health services research at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1996. Dr. Arcury is a medical anthropologist and public health scientist with a research program focused on improving the health of rural and minority populations. Since 1996, he has collaborated in a program of community-based participatory research with immigrant farmworkers and poultry processing workers and their families focused on occupational and environmental health and justice. Although much of his research with farmworkers has focused on pesticide exposure, he has also directed projects examining skin disease and green tobacco sickness. He has authored over 200 refereed articles, and he has participated in the development of diverse educa- tional materials intended to return research results to immigrant worker communities. He has also used research results to effect policy change. Dr. Arcury’s contributions have been recognized by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health with the 2006 National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Innovative Research Award for Worker Health and Safety (with Sara A. Quandt), the National Rural Health Association with the 2004 Outstanding Researcher Award, the Washington Association for the Practice of Anthropology with the 2003 Praxis Award (with Sara A. Quandt). He received the 2007 Mid-Career Investigator in Clinical Sciences Award of Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Joseph G. Grzywacz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC. Dr. Grzywacz is an interdisciplinary social scientist with doctoral training in adult development and family studies (University of Wisconsin), and postdoctoral train- ing in the social ecology of adult health (University of California, Irvine). Grzywacz’s research focuses with primarily on adults’ daily work and family lives and how the challenge of combining work and family affects physical and mental health. Dr. Grzywacz has published several papers focused on different domains of Latino farmworkers’ mental health including depression, alcohol use and abuse, vii viii Contributors anxiety, as well as stressors confronted by farmworkers and their families. Grzywacz provides ongoing consultation to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) on Latino farmworker mental health. Antonio J. Marín, M.A., is a Research Associate in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston- Salem, NC. He has collaborated on several research projects related to farmworkers, including projects focused on occupational skin disease and on pesticide exposure. He currently serves as the project manager for an environmental justice project with Latino poultry processing workers in North Carolina. Mr. Marín has worked extensively with lay health promoters as a means of increasing knowledge of envi- ronmental and occupational health and of workers’ rights among immigrant workers with limited literacy. Marín is a native of Venezuela. He has been active as a community organizer with Latinos in North Carolina for the past decade. John J. May, M.D., is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. He trained in internal medicine at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, New York, and the University of Colorado Medical Center, Denver, CO. Dr. May is a specialist in pulmonary medicine, having completed a fellowship at the University of Colorado. In addition to his pulmonary practice at Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, Dr. May began seeing patients with various agricultural occupational health problems over two decades ago. He is a cofounder and director of the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health, which is one of the national centers designated by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. May has published widely in research areas that include respiratory, musculoskeletal, hearing, and other disorders affecting both family farmers and farmworkers in the northeastern United States. A particular interest is the application of community-based intervention methods in addressing occupa- tional health challenges for migrant farmworkers. Dr. May now serves as the director of the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, New York. Sara A. Quandt, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, Division of Public Health Sciences, and in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston- Salem, NC. She is an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and an affiliate of the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity at Wake Forest. Dr. Quandt was trained in medical anthropology and human nutrition at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on health disparities in rural and minority communities. Quandt and colleagues have conducted basic research on pesticide exposure among farm- worker families; developed, tested, and implemented pesticide safety interventions; and initiated policy-relevant research at the request of the farmworker and medical communities in food insecurity, green tobacco sickness, mental health, housing, oral health, and skin disease. She serves on the Health and Safety Advisory Committee of East Coast Migrant Head Start Program and is on the External Advisory Committee of the Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center at the University of Washington. She was corecipient with Thomas A. Arcury Contributors ix of the 2006 National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Innovative Research Award for Worker Health and Safety for work on reducing the impact of green tobacco sickness among Latino farmworkers. She received the Outstanding Rural Health Researcher Award of the National Rural Health Association in 2007. Scott D. Rhodes, Ph.D., M.P.H., C.H.E.S., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy, Division of Public Health Sciences, and in the Section on Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine; and is an affiliate faculty of the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity, at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC. Dr. Rhodes’ research explores sexual health, HIV, and sexually transmitted disease (STD) pre- vention, obesity prevention, and other health disparities among vulnerable com- munities. Dr. Rhodes has extensive research experience with Latino immigrant communities; self-identifying gay and bisexual men and men who have sex with men (MSM); urban African American adolescents; persons living with HIV/AIDS; and men of color. He has broad experience in the design, implementation, and evaluation of multiple-level interventions; community-based participatory research (CBPR); exploratory evaluation; the application of behavioral theory; lay health advisor interventions; sociocultural determinants of health; and Internet research. Quirina Vallejos, M.P.H., is a Research Associate in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston- Salem, NC. Ms. Vallejos received a B.A. in Spanish and Latin American Studies at Duke University, and M.P.H. in Community Health Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Ms. Vallejos is the project manager for two research projects and two educational intervention projects that address the topics of skin disease, pesticide exposure, and environmental tobacco smoke among Latino farm- workers. She is also the Principal Investigator of a US Environmental Protection Agency-funded project to educate Latino parents about lead poisoning testing and prevention. She has served for a year on the housing subcommittee of the Farmworker Advocacy Network, a network of organizations that advocates for improved living and working conditions of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families in North Carolina. Melinda F. Wiggins, M.T.S., is the Executive Director of Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), a nonprofit organization that brings students and farmworkers together to learn about each other’s lives, share resources and skills, improve condi- tions for farmworkers, and build diverse coalitions working for social change (www.saf-unite.org). Ms. Wiggins is the granddaughter of sharecroppers. She grew up in a rural farming community in the Mississippi Delta. She moved to North Carolina in 1992 to pursue a Masters of Theological Studies at Duke University. Before starting as the Director of SAF in 1996, she coordinated SAF’s Into the Fields summer internship program for several years. She first joined the farm- worker movement as a SAF intern with the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry during the summer of 1993. Wiggins is involved with many social and economic justice organizations, including the Adelante Education Coalition, Farmworker Advocacy x Contributors Network, Farmworker Ministry Committee, and Housing Development Corporation. She coedited The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers’ Lives, Labor and Advocacy, published by University of Texas Press in 2002.