Pesticide Risk Communication, Risk Perception, and Self-Protective Behaviors Among Farmworkers in

Agricultural pesticide use is the highest of any industry, yet there is little research evaluating farmworkers ’ understandings of the health risks chemical exposure poses. This study examines pesticide education, risk perception, and self-protective behaviors among farmworkers in California’s Salinas Valley. Fifty current and former farmworkers were interviewed for this research. Despite several potential barriers to risk communication (e.g., lan-guage differences and nonuniform methods of pesticide safety training), the respondents understood many of the potential health consequences of expo-sure while holding elevated levels of risk perception relative to the general public. They received information on the health effects of pesticide exposure from both grower-based training and personal social networks; however, the respondents continued to participate in unnecessarily risky behaviors