A study deals with the obstacle of providing appropriate health care to farmworkers and their families.
Image credit: Center for Healthy Communities, UC Riverside
By the middle of the 20 th century, the arrival of irrigation to California’s Coachella Valley marked the beginning of year-round farming and a growing farming industry. By 2016, the industry was valued at $639 billion
However, the majority of these crops originate from the eastern part of the valley. This location is also home to farmworkers from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, who are migrant Latinx, a number of whom are undocumented and underinsured.
A brand-new research study proposes a means of providing efficient healthcare to the underserved farmworkers and their families in the eastern Coachella Valley through the use of mobile health clinics (MHCs).
The possible effect of such centers extends far beyond the Coachella Valley. Over 80%of farmworkers in the United States are Latinx, of which 95%are immigrants.
The lead author of the new study is medical anthropologist Ann Cheney of the University of California, Riverside (UCR), with assistance from UCR graduate Monica Tulimiero of the Ventura County Medical Center. The study appears in The Journal of Rural Health
Cheney states:
” Farmworkers in eastern Coachella Valley face numerous barriers, such as minimal health services and public transport, language barriers, unfamiliar medical systems, no health insurance, and monetary obstacles intensified by a lack of employees’ rights.”
The researchers conducted the study in cooperation with Health to Hope, a federally certified health center, and involved the creation of a pilot program consisting of 3 MHC systems in the eastern Coachella Valley.
In creating their MHC system, the scientists conducted comprehensive focus-group conversations with neighborhood members to ascertain both their health care top priorities and to find out about the obstacles they deal with. They asked residents to explain what they considered a perfect hea