The primary purpose of this project is to develop a permanent partnership that will empower the Hispanic agricultural worker community in the Yakima Valley, Washington State, to effectively identify, characterize and respond to the many occupational and environmental risks they face. The target population is the seasonal and migrant agricultural workers in the middle Yakima Valley. The Northwest Community Education Center/Radio KDNA, Heritage College, the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic, and the University of Washington will partner in this multi-disciplinary project. This project will organize and sustain a community advisory board (CAB) comprised of unions, church groups, community members and other representative community groups. Through the guidance of the CAB a community process will develop a prioritized research and action agenda. The activities of the project will use a participatory action research (PAR) approach as a means to obtain new perspectives and an ecological framework to identify and prioritize occupational and environmental health stressors. The plan will include frequent community communication and education, an interactive evaluation process, curriculum development for Heritage College students and ConneX summer trainees and further data collection by students and community members. Technical expertise will be tapped from the University of Washington Schools of Nursing and Public Health and Heritage College. Preliminary data collection will support the development of new research proposals. The products of this process will be a sustainable community-academic-clinical partnership, an empowered cadre of young people from the community and improved occupational and environmental health for Hispanic agricultural workers.
| Crowe, J L; Keifer, M C; Salazar, M K (2008) Striving to provide opportunities for farm worker community participation in research. J Agric Saf Health 14:205-19 |
