Assessing Pesticide Safety Knowledge Among Hispanic Migrant Farmworkers in Oregon

Details

• Personal Author:
  Lasarev MR ; McCauley LA ; Scherer JA ; Shapiro SE
• Description:
  The purpose of this article is to report on the development and initial use of a pesticide knowledge test (PKT) specifically designed to evaluate agricultural workers' knowledge of the content mandated by the federal Worker Protection Standard (WPS). The PKT is a 20-item, true-false test, used in a sample of 414 adult and adolescent migrant farmworkers in Oregon. The overall mean score, i.e., number correct, was 15.67(78.4%), with both adults and adolescents demonstrating the most difficulty with questions related to the overall health effects of pesticides. The internal consistency was 0.73, when estimated using a method to correct for small sample sizes. Only six items had less than 70% correct answers. Content validity was achieved by basing the items directly on the Worker Protection Standard; face validity was obtained by having the final version of the test reviewed by a bilingual (English-Spanish) educator familiar with the requirements of the WPS. Overall, adult participants scored better than adolescents, and those with previous pesticide training scored better than those without. There were no differences in scores based on gender or whether the test was taken in English or Spanish; however, participants who spoke indigenous languages scored significantly lower than those who did not. These results indicate that the PKT is a valid, reliable measure of worker knowledge of the content of the WPS, although it does not measure the extent to which that knowledge is actually used in the work setting. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Age Factors Aging Agriculture Environmental Exposure Farmers Insecticides Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Age-factors Age-groups Agricultural-workers Author Keywords: Agricultural Workers Environmental-exposure Pesticide Knowledge Pesticides Pesticides-and-agricultural-chemicals Pesticide Safety Worker-health
• ISSN:
  1074-7583
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Oregon ; OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  177-186
• Volume:
  10
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20029304
• Citation:
  J Agric Saf Health 2004 Aug; 10(3):177-186
• Contact Point Address:
  University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, 420 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6096
• Email:
  lmccaule@nursing.upenn.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2004
• NORA Priority Area:
  Work Environment and Workforce: Special Populations
• Performing Organization:
  Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon 97201-3098
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20000930
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20020929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:13ca26fcd5f1e5f594550bceea4c2811f386b59ce7efd8128c5b32efb73b00da37f025923f167d177806e8c68c3f39f47f788b4fdb645f31bc355336e09d7dae
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/190323/cdc_190323_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 92.93 KB ]