Team Project Summaries from 2004-7

1. Investigating Janitorial Chemical Hazards: "So Safe You Can Eat It"  
2. Overhead Drilling in the Construction Trades
3. Summertime Blues: Heat Stress in a Fabric-coating Factory
4. Heavenly Beds, Backbreaking Work: Hotel Room Cleaners
5. Day Laborers in Los Angeles  Survey of Hazards
6. Bricklayer Exposure to Silica Dust
7. Heat Illness among California Farmworkers
8. Chinese Restaurant Worker Hazards
9. New York Public Employees Federation (PEF) Violence Prevention Project
10. Health and Safety at Work: Immigrant Retail Workers in Brooklyn

Heat Illness among California Farmworkers

Sponsors and Mentors

• The California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) Foundation's Agricultural Worker Health Project
• The Occupational Health Branch of the California Department of Health Services (DHS)

In the summer of 2005, four agricultural workers died of heat related illness in the agricultural fields of California’s Central Valley.  As a result of these fatalities, Cal/OSHA and the state of California issued an Emergency Heat Illness Prevention Standard, the first in the country, to protect agricultural workers in the fields and other workers in outdoor occupations. Under this standard, each worker has the right to shade, water, rest breaks, and proper training on heat related illness. 

 The California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (CRLAF) asked the interns to (1) assess worker knowledge of their rights under the new standard, (2) assess employer compliance with the standard, and (3) develop educational materials tailored to meet the needs of the workers.  

The students, both fluent in Spanish, interviewed field workers at CRLA events and observed worksite conditions by accompanying Cal/OSHA inspectors on a series of inspections in the Central Valley.  

Key findings included lack of awareness of the heat stress standard and inadequate worker training about heat stress. As a result, workers were not taking rest breaks in the shade and their water intake was low, putting them at increased risk for heat stress.  The interns also noted a recent increase in migrant and indigenous workers from Mexico and India, increasing the challenge of educating and training this workforce.  

After reviewing the available worker education materials on heat stress and talking to workers, the students decided to focus on an audio message rather than additional written materials.  They developed a short audio message for workers about the warning signs of heat stress intended to reach people with low literacy levels. The message was translated into Spanish and a common Mixteco dialect and distributed on CDs through CLRAF.  CDs were selected as the best medium based on worker interviews and access to CD players in their cars.