FARMWORKER AND FARMER PERCEPTIONS OF FARMWORKER AGRICULTURAL CHEMICAL-EXPOSURE IN NORTH-CAROLINA

Agricultural chemicals pose health risks for farmworkers engaged in cu ltivating and harvesting crops. In a project to develop culturally app ropriate interventions to reduce farmworker exposure to agricultural c hemicals, formative research used in-depth interviews and focus groups to elicit beliefs and knowledge about exposure from farmers and migra nt and seasonal farmworkers in North Carolina. Farmworkers were concer ned about acute effects they attributed to exposure and had little kno wledge of long-term effects of low-level exposure. They believe that s ome individuals are inherently more susceptibility to the health effec ts of exposure than others; most do not recognize the skin as a site o f chemical absorption. They report instances of exposure that reflect the power relationships with farmers,indicating that lack of knowledge is not the only issue that must be addressed in an intervention. Farm ers believe that farmworkers are not exposed tb chemicals because they do not mix or apply chemicals. Such a belief is consistent with the t raining received by farmers. The PRECEDE-PROCEED planning model is use d to identify predisposing and reinforcing factors on which an effecti ve intervention should focus.