Frontiers in public health
Fields of inequity: initial insights into structural disparities among migrant farmworkers in Maryland
By Payne-Sturges DC, Cruz-Cano R, Hernandez S and 5 others.
Abstract
Background
Despite well documented health vulnerabilities of migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFWs), few public health studies have comprehensively evaluated these population health differences through the lens of social causal structures. In this article we describe a community-based participatory and interdisciplinary research partnership, RESPIRAR, a community-based and interdisciplinary research collaboration that seeks to understand the social, structural and institutional drivers of respiratory health and housing conditions of migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFWs) in the Mid-Atlantic States and we report on structured disparities among MSFWs in Maryland participating in our study. Few data exist on the demographics, health and housing conditions of MSFs currently employed in Maryland.
Methods
All elements of RESPIRAR were co-designed by the partnership including the development of the baseline survey. Participant recruitment and data collection were carried out by teams consisting of staff from the university collaborators and CATA, a farmworker organization with over 40 years of experience supporting farmworkers and low-wage immigrant workers in the Mid-Atlantic region. 135 MSFWs on Maryland's Eastern Shore completed baseline surveys on their demographic characteristics, housing and working conditions, and health status during the 2023 and 2024 agricultural seasons. In addition to generating summary statistics, we examined differences in wages and housing type by farmworker demographics, work authorization status and work tasks.