Farmworker pesticide exposure and community-eased participation research: Rationale and practical applications

The consequences of agricultural pesticide exposure continue to be major en vironmental health problems in rural communities. Community-based participa tory research (CBPR) is an important approach to redressing health disparit ies resulting from environmental causes. In this article we introduce a col lection of articles that describe projects using CBPR to address the health disparities resulting from pesticide exposure in agricultural communities, particularly the communities of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. The arti cles in this collection are based on a workshop convened at the 1999 Americ an Public Health Association meeting. The goals in presenting this collecti on are to provide those endeavoring to initiate CBPR projects needed inform ation, guidelines, and procedures to improve the quality of the CBPR experi ence; to increase the scientific validity of CBPR projects; and to reduce t he potential difficulties and stress of these collaborations. In this intro duction we discuss the context in which these projects operate, summarizing background information about farmworkers in the United States, what is kno wn about farmworker pesticide exposure, and the concept of community-based participatory research. Finally, the articles in this collection are summar ized, and major themes common to successful CBPR projects are identified. T hese common features are taking the time to interact with the community, us ing multiple approaches to engage the different parts of the community, und erstanding different participants often have different goals, appreciating each group's strengths, valuing community knowledge, and being flexible and creative in conducting research. The final article in this collection desc ribes the translational research program at the National Institute of Envir onmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) highlighting activities pertinent to the h ealth of rural communities, giving an overview of NIEHS-supported projects addressing health concerns of Native Americans and rural African-American c ommunities in addition to farmworkers, and discussing future plans for CBPR at NIEHS.