empowering farmworkers to improve their living and working conditions since 1981

Targeting Job Safety Training Toward Low-Literacy and Linguistically Isolated Populations

Health & Safety - Eye on Farmworker Health

Title: Overcoming Language and Literacy Barriers in Safety and Health Training of Agricultural Workers

Authors: Thomas A. Arcury, Jorge M. Estrada and Sara A.Quandt  

Source: Journal of Agromedicine, 15: 3, 236-248 (2010)

In recent decades, the diversity of the United States’ agricultural workforce has increased.  While Latino individuals make up the largest percentage of agricultural workers, other groups such as Caribbean immigrants, Asian Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans are also significant populations.  This diversity complicates attempts at providing occupational health and safety training to workers in an industry that subjects them to environmental, chemical, and mechanical dangers, and necessitates the development of training programs that are culturally and educationally appropriate. This article provides an overview of what is needed to provide effective and appropriate training, summarizes various approaches to training, and recommends approaches to develop effective training programs.

The lack of available data concerning both the composition of the agricultural workforce and the incidence of occupational illnesses and injuries among farm workers is a serious barrier to designing safety training programs.  Attempts have been made to gather data about occupational injuries in agriculture, but the results provide an incomplete picture.

Training farm workers is difficult because of the workers’ education level. According to the National Agricultural Worker Survey (NAWS), as of 2002 most farm workers had less than a high school education. Literacy rates are generally low, and workers may not have developed the skills needed to learn from conventional teaching methods. Additionally, many farm workers speak little or no English, and some don't speak Spanish either, which creates language barriers and sometimes necessitates multiple translations or translators. 

Another barrier to effective training is the transient nature of most farm workers’ lives. Their employment is seasonal, and they often change employer multiple times a year, meaning that to be effective, employer-provided training must be given multiple times each year.

Cultural barriers only add to the mix. Many farm workers come from communities that believe that a person’s health is in the hands of God or another supernatural force, which may make them unwilling to take health and safety training seriously. Some farm workers may also be unlikely to seek medical care after they are injured due to a reliance on traditional and folk medicine. Even if workers accept Western medicine, they may not have access to it due to a lack of health insurance, workers’ compensation benefits, and transportation.

Training that is both linguistically and literacy appropriate is available only sporadically in the United States. Certain regions are fortunate enough to have such training programs, but even within these regions, not all topics are covered equally or well. This lack of a comprehensive training program is partially due to the fact that the federal government only requires that workers be trained regarding pesticide safety, leaving all other occupational health and safety topics to be covered by advocacy and service organizations and university programs. While it is unfortunate that there is a lack of systematic government mandated training programs, these organizations have developed training models that could be useful in designing more programs.

Two useful approaches are the Promotora de Salud model and the use of community based participatory research (CBPR).  In the first model, community members are trained as lay health workers, allowing them to serve as resources to other farm workers. The CBPR model uses groups of farm workers to develop and implement programs.  Both models utilize workers to train their colleagues, verbal communication, multiple training sessions, and a variety of training materials. Unfortunately, neither type of training can be provided at the work site and programs must be implemented in communities.

Improving the occupational health and safety training of farm workers requires a coordinated effort. First, a better surveillance system to monitor injuries would highlight the most urgent health and safety training needs. Training programs should develop with input from workers, so they can be targeted to those with low-literacy and limited English proficiency. A variety of formats, including audio-visual aids and hands-on training, would help ensure that all workers understand the information being presented. Finally, policies that require agricultural employers to provide safety training to all workers, and sufficient staff to implement these policies, are necessary to ensure that all agricultural workers have the tools to keep themselves safe on the job.