Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in North America, but across southern Florida, agricultural workers are still picking the tastes of summer. Along this tropical finger of the US, millions of pounds of tomatoes are grown, picked mature and green, and shipped to every corner of the nation, eventually arriving as a delicate slice of red tomato on a burger near you. While the tomato industry has seen smaller harvests this winter as it struggles to recover from September’s Hurricane Irma, thousands of workers are still laboring among the tomato vines. Regardless of the season, tomato workers can encounter numerous hazards are work, and, as many of the workers are Spanish-speaking, health and safety information is not always accessible in a form that they can understand. The new Tomato Workers’ Health and Safety Guide [2], newly available in Spanish, is the perfect reference for clinicians serving tomato workers to identify, manage, and prevent work-related injuries and exposures.
The colorful, 70-page guide is the result of months of work from Rachel Kelley, a MD/MS candidate in the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, researchers at East Tennessee State University, and MCN. Kelley developed the guide as a visiting researcher at ETSU, where she interviewed tomato workers and conducted focus groups and literature reviews. MCN’s Environmental and Occupational Health Division extensively reviewed the document. Corey Johnson, Communications & Graphic Designer, designed the guide, and Alma Galván, MCH, Senior Program Manager and Tania Salgado, MCN Health Network Associate, completed the lengthy translation from English into Spanish.
Please share this guide, on MCN’s website in English and Spanish [2], with your clinicians, outreach partners, and health justice advocates.
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