Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Community Participatory Approach to Measuring Farmworker Pesticide Exposures: PACE

Thomas Arcury
tarcury@wfubmc.edu

Project Description

This project builds on over ten years of community-based participatory research conducted by a partnership of the North Carolina Farmworkers Project and Wake Forest University School of Medicine. This group's past research has developed and tested lay health promoter interventions to increase pesticide safety behaviors among Latino farmworkers (R24 ES08739) and among their families (R01 ES08739). In the course of this research, the partnership has also developed, analyzed, and published effective means to establish and sustain university-community collaboration. Despite efforts by our partnership and others to help farmworkers make their work environments safer and change their behaviors to reduce pesticide exposure, there are remarkably few data to document the actual routine exposure of farmworkers to pesticides in their work and home environments. To address this problem, this project is working toward four specific aims. It is: (1) using community-based participatory processes to design an acceptable and effective strategy for collecting valid and reliable data on routine farmworker pesticide exposure; (2) documenting pesticide exposure levels and variability in these levels among farmworkers in North Carolina using urinary biomarkers; (3) delineating the predictors of pesticide exposure levels among farmworkers in North Carolina, including farmworker workplace and household behaviors, characteristics of the work and household environments, psychosocial stressors and health beliefs; and (4) developing and implementing a communication and dissemination plan for disseminating risk information in culturally and educationally appropriate formats to farmworkers concerning pesticide exposure. The research design for this project is based on a conceptual framework that contrasts proximal and distal determinants of pesticide exposure for farmworkers, and tests hypotheses derived from this conceptual model. The research is being conducted over 4 years. In year 1, data collection procedures are finalized through collaborative efforts with our community partners. In year 2, data are collected; this involves 4 repeated measures at monthly intervals with a sample of 260 farmworkers across the agricultural season. A minimum of three data points is necessary to answer research questions about within-person variation in pesticide exposure. Data collection includes two components, a structured interview questionnaire and a urine sample. Laboratory analysis is completed in years 2 and 3. In years 3 and 4, through the collaborative efforts of the community and academic partners, the communication and dissemination plan is implemented, including returning results to participants, communicating results to the community, and communicating results to policy makers.

Collaborators

North Carolina Farmworkers Project

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