Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
BMC Public Health. 2024 Nov 28;24(1):3314. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-20671-x.
The severity of wildfire seasons amplify stressors that farmworker families in the Pacific Northwest face as they balance childcare, work, and personal wellbeing. A lack of safe and attainable childcare has been a challenge for farmworker parents since before the Covid-19 pandemic and is of particular concern during wildfire season when parents must weigh the risks and benefits of leaving children at home, taking them to work, or sending them to childcare. This study describes how stressors of balancing childcare, work, and concerns about children's exposure to smoke during wildfire season impact the wellbeing and workplace absenteeism and presenteeism for farmworker parents.
To understand the impact of this balancing act on farmworker parents, researchers from the University of Washington partnered with Wenatchee's Community for the Advancement of Family Education to conduct interviews with 20 farmworker parents, and co-host two town hall discussion meetings within the community.
Six qualitative themes emerged from our interviews including that farmworker parents feel both ill-prepared at home to protect their families, and also do not feel as though they are being provided with adequate resources at work to protect their own personal health. Through the town hall events, we learned that verbal messaging and storytelling are effective and appreciated routes of communication.
Overall, we found that messaging and effective communication around how to prepare for the worsening levels of smoke is lacking among the farmworker community. Future research will address the messaging and communication gaps that must be filled to protect the health of both workers and their families during smoke season and beyond.
野火季节的严重程度加剧了太平洋西北地区农场工人家庭面临的压力，他们需要平衡育儿、工作和个人福祉。由于新冠疫情之前，缺乏安全且可及的儿童保育一直是农场工人父母面临的挑战，在野火季节尤为如此，因为父母必须权衡将孩子留在家中、带他们去工作或送他们去儿童保育的风险和收益。本研究描述了平衡育儿、工作和对儿童在野火季节暴露于烟雾的担忧等压力源如何影响农场工人父母的幸福感和工作场所旷工和出勤。
为了了解这种平衡行为对农场工人父母的影响，华盛顿大学的研究人员与 Wenatchee 的家庭促进教育社区合作，对 20 名农场工人父母进行了访谈，并在社区内共同举办了两次城镇厅讨论会议。
我们的访谈中出现了六个定性主题，包括农场工人父母感到在家中保护家人的准备不足，并且也觉得他们在工作中没有得到足够的资源来保护自己的个人健康。通过城镇厅活动，我们了解到口头信息和故事讲述是有效的和受欢迎的沟通途径。
总的来说，我们发现，在如何为烟雾恶化水平做准备方面，信息传递和有效的沟通在农场工人社区中是缺乏的。未来的研究将解决必须填补的信息传递和沟通差距，以保护工人及其家属在烟雾季节及以后的健康。
