"Essential" but expendable: farmworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic -- the Michigan Farmworker Project.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Fleming PJ ; Handal AJ ; Iglesias-Ríos L ; O'Neill MS ; Valentín-Cortés MA
• Description:
  For "essential" blue-collar workers, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated health, social, and economic inequities by race, ethnicity, and immigration status-particularly for Black and Latinx populations. Inequities in COVID-19 infections, illness, and death result from historical and current racist and anti-immigrant policies and practices that affect access to health, social, and economic benefits for minoritized communities. On March 16, 2020, President Trump issued an updated "Coronavirus Guidance for America," stating that the essential agricultural workforce has "a special responsibility to maintain [its] normal work schedule" (https://bit.ly/2Ew3Q1W). The "normal" for farmworkers often involves labor exploitation and a precarious working environment. Yet, limited attention has been directed to understanding how these factors hamper efforts to protect this population and prevent the spread of COVID-19. The agricultural sector workforce is predominantly composed of US and foreign-born Latinx workers, with an estimated half who are undocumented (https://bit.ly/2G00PHX). Overall, farmworkers face a cluster of vulnerability factors (e.g., poverty, lack of educational opportunities, language barriers, lack of rights afforded to citizens) that make them more susceptible to occupational risks and labor exploitation and trafficking. Farmworkers have been historically excluded from social and labor protections, despite working in one of the most dangerous and lowest-paying occupations in the country. In our qualitative community-engaged research-the Michigan Farmworker Project-we conducted 55 in-depth interviews (34 with female and male farmworkers and 21 with stakeholders). Our results highlight how the precarity of farmworkers' working and living conditions can be exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. We report findings and recommend protective policies. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Agriculture Communicable Diseases Farmers Minority Health Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Agriculture; Agricultural workers; Farm workers; Occupational health disparities; Minority health; Socioeconomics; COVID-19; Coronavirus; Infectious diseases; Policy; Worker health; Work organization
• ISSN:
  0090-0036
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Michigan ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  110
• Issue:
  12
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20065013
• Citation:
  Am J Public Health 2020 Dec; 110(12):1760-1762
• Contact Point Address:
  Alexis J. Handal, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1415 Washington Heights, Room 6622, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029
• Email:
  ahandal@umich.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2021
• Performing Organization:
  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  American Journal of Public Health
• End Date:
  20280630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:971b97dab0d04e6b888bd4daf4980b882f97a698971033517540fde0cb5ee5b1d735702e0a6bf02461f2087a399f5157bf416c9c02df34b78543266425cc1fa9
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/248619/cdc_248619_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 652.18 KB ]