ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Attending to Pesticide Exposure and Heat Illness Among Farmworkers

Results From an Attention Placebo-Controlled Evaluation Design

Grzywacz, Joseph G. PhD; Gonzales-Backen, Melinda PhD; Liebman, Amy MPH; Marín, Antonio J. MA; Trejo, Maribel BS; Gudino, Cecilia Ordaz; Economos, Jeannie; Tovar-Aguilar, J. Antonio PhD

Author Information

Florida State University, Department of Family & Child Sciences, Tallahassee, FL (Dr Grzywacz, Dr Gonzales-Backen, Marín, Trejo, Gudino), Migrant Clinicians Network, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health, Salisbury, MD (Liebman), Farmworker Association of Florida, Apopka, FL (Economos, Dr Tovar-Aguilar).

Address correspondence to: Joseph G. Grzywacz, PhD, Chair and Norejane Hendrickson Professor of Family & Child Sciences, 120 Convocation Way, Tallahassee, FL 32306. ([email protected]).

This research was supported by a grant to the Southeastern Coastal Center for Agricultural Health and Safety (U54 OH011230).

None of the authors have financial, consultant, institutional, and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest.

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 61(9):p 735-742, September 2019. | DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000001650

Abstract

Objective: 

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of curricula for improving knowledge and attitudes pertaining to pesticide exposure and heat illness among immigrant Latino farmworkers.

Methods: 

A pesticide safety curriculum informed by the revised Worker Protection Standard (WPS) was tested against an attention placebo-controlled curriculum (heat illness) in a sample of Latino farmworkers (N = 127).

Results: 

Pesticide safety knowledge increased in the overall sample, but did not differ by curriculum assignment. Pesticide safety behavioral intentions increased among participants in the pesticide safety curriculum but decreased among those in the other curriculum (P < 0.05). Heat illness knowledge and behavioral intentions increased more for farmworkers assigned to the heat illness than the pesticide safety curriculum.

Conclusion: 

The developed curricula show good promise for meeting the spirit of the revised WPS and for reducing the burden of heat-related fatality and morbidity among Latino farmworkers.

Copyright © 2019 by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

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