Promotoras and Community Health Workers Project

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Investigator: Stuart Heard, PharmD
Sponsor: California Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Pesticide Regulation

Location(s): United States

Description

Partnering with the Healthy Fields, Healthy Kids Project, and Farmworker Justice the project worked with community farmworker organizations in California, Arizona, and Florida to provide education and outreach to farmworker families to improve children's environmental health. Farmworker Justice published its Clean Environment for Healthy Kids curriculum in English and Spanish. This curriculum addresses lead poisoning prevention and residential and take-home pesticide exposures. Farmworker Justice trained 30 promotoras to recognize and reduce environmental health hazards. These promotoras were able to provide important children's health information to over 5,600 farmworkers in California, Arizona, and Florida in a culturally competent manner, using Spanish or other indigenous languages. Moreover, Farmworker Justice helped partner organizations to: 1) strengthen ties with local community health centers and other primary healthcare providers; 2) increase referrals to clinics that can assist farmworkers with prevention and treatment of injuries and illnesses related to environmental hazards; and 3) contribute to the cultural competency of local health clinics providing services to farmworker patients.