Reducing Farmworker Residential Pesticide Exposure: Evaluation of a Lay Health Advisor Intervention

Residential pesticide exposure among farmworkerfamilies is an environmental health concern (Arcuryet al., 2005; Quandt et al., 2004). Farmworker families are at double jeopardy for residential pesticide exposure. Farmworker families can be exposed to pesti-cides due to residential application (Arcury et al., 2005; Bradman et al., 1997). Because most farmworkers live in substandard housing, which is often infested with pests, their exposure to residential application pesticides could be extensive (Early et al., 2006). Farmworker families also experience para-occupational exposure due to pesticides brought home from work on the skin, clothes, and boots of workers and to pesticides that drift into their homes from application in nearby agricultural fields (Quandt et al., 2006). Complicating the potential for residential exposure among farmworker families is the limited knowledge of pesticides and cultural beliefs that farmworker familie