ABSTRACT
Climate change amplifies social inequities, disproportionately impacting the health and well-being of populations already vulnerable to social risk factors associated with race, ethnicity, immigration status, and occupation. Recent hurricanes, extreme temperatures, wildfires, and droughts have directly impacted vulnerable populations, including farmworkers in the US and its territories. Understanding how systems increase poor health outcomes for farmworkers is important to create solutions that are practical, feasible, and sustainable. In this commentary, we discuss a framework to assess the climate crisis and its impact on farmworkers. Although environmental stressors impact all populations, the difference in the systems or structures surrounding individuals can increase the risks and diseases of vulnerable populations when responding to the effects of the climate crisis. This framework presents policies and systems that could be limiting for agricultural workers when exposed to environmental stressors and the direct or indirect consequences of not addressing them.
Subject(s)
Farmers , Transients and Migrants , Humans , Climate Change , Environment , Risk Factors , Health InequitiesSubject(s)
COVID-19/prevention & control , Community Participation/statistics & numerical data , Farmers/statistics & numerical data , Occupational Health/statistics & numerical data , Safety Management/organization & administration , COVID-19/epidemiology , Community-Based Participatory Research , Community-Institutional Relations , Humans , Transients and Migrants/statistics & numerical dataABSTRACT
Migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFWs) encounter numerous and overlapping barriers to healthcare access, including economic, cultural, linguistic, and logistic factors, all of which may contribute to disparities in cancer outcomes. For many MSFWs and their families, healthcare access and continuity are further eroded by their mobility. In addition, MSFWs experience occupational exposures that increase their risk of cancer.