Improving eye safety in citrus harvest crews through the acceptance of personal protective equipment, community-based participatory research, social marketing, and community health workers.

For the last 10 years, the Partnership for Citrus Workers Health (PCWH) has been an evidence-based intervention program that promotes the adoption of protective eye safety equipment among Spanish-speaking farmworkers of Florida. At the root of this program is the systematic use of community-based preventive marketing (CBPM) and the training of community health workers (CHWs) among citrus harvester using popular education. CBPM is a model that combines the organizational system of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and the strategies of social marketing. This particular program relied on formative research data using a mixed-methods approach and a multilevel stakeholder analysis that allowed for rapid dissemination, effective increase of personal protective equipment (PPE) usage, and a subsequent impact on adoptive workers and companies. Focus groups, face-to-face interviews, surveys, participant observation, Greco-Latin square, and quasi-experimental tests were implemented. A 20-hour popular education training produced CHWs that translated results of the formative research to potential adopters and also provided first aid skills for eye injuries. Reduction of injuries is not limited to the use of safety glasses, but also to the adoption of timely intervention and regular eye hygiene. Limitations include adoption in only large companies, rapid decline of eye safety glasses without consistent intervention, technological limitations of glasses, and thorough cost-benefit analysis.