Abstract
Heat-related illness (also called heat illness) is a recurring and avoidable condition that results in multiple deaths in California farm fields every year. We conducted five focus groups as part of the California Heat Illness Prevention Study (CHIPS) in Fresno, California, during the summer of 2013. We used qualitative coding methods to analyze focus group transcript data with consideration of workers' behaviors and beliefs, workplace safety training experiences, employer-employee relations, and workplace conditions and organization. Discrete and complex factors related to worker self-care were identified, and suggest that heat illness cannot be viewed as simply a biomedical or behavioral issue, and that preventive health interventions in agriculture also need to take into account power and control structures existing in the industry. Findings indicate that prevention plans should be guided by strategies that integrate worker control with work-site organization and employer relations, as opposed to strategies that focus exclusively on traditional modes of training to advance prevention. See the press release for this article.
Highlights
Farmworkers play a critical role in harvesting everything from our vegetables and fruits to our Christmas trees
Author note: Anna Erwin is a PhD student in the Planning, Governance, and Globalization program in the Virginia Tech School of Public and International Affairs. As these types of partnerships become more common, power relations must be addressed and shifted if we wish to see more equal participation from both parties. This commentary outlines a framework for change at all levels of governance, and expresses five ways in which the alternative agriculture movement can begin to shift power associated with race, class, and citizenship, and create and maintain stronger partnerships with the farmworker community
In order to ensure that these partnerships flourish and to move toward broad-scale social change, differences arising from race, class, and citizenship privileges must be understood, and be broken down at all levels of the collaborative movement
Summary
Farmworkers play a critical role in harvesting everything from our vegetables and fruits to our Christmas trees. This commentary outlines a framework for change at all levels of governance, and expresses five ways in which the alternative agriculture movement can begin to shift power associated with race, class, and citizenship, and create and maintain stronger partnerships with the farmworker community.
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