The Partnership for Citrus Workers Health
The Farmworker Association of Florida (FWAF) and The Florida Prevention Research Center (FPRC) of the University of South Florida convened their partnership in 2001. The project that was created is guided by a community board of citrus industry representatives, its workers, community activists, and public health professionals. The board works together to bring about real changes in the conditions of work and the quality of life among citrus workers. Eye injury was selected as the focus of the project by the board, since it is the main injury among citrus harvesters.
The TAS project was developed in 1997 to design, implement, and evaluate a program to reduce the adverse health effects commonly associated with pesticide exposure. The project focuses on worker communities in the fernery and nursery industries in Volusia, Lake, Seminole, Orange and Polk counties.
A community-based participatory research (CBPR) collaboration between the Farmworker Association of Florida and Emory University School of Nursing was formed to learn examine female farmworkers’ knowledge of pesticide exposure, ergonomics and heat stress at the workplace and the potential effects of these occupational issues on their pregnancies.
The Farmworkers Health Study examines the relationship of long-term pesticide exposure in farmworkers and deficits in cognitive and psychomotor function. The group collaborated with the Farmworker Association of Florida to gain access to the community. Most farmworkers in this community worked in one of three types of agriculture: growing and harvesting ornamental ferns, working in nurseries or picking citrus fruit.