Evaluating the effectiveness of reproductive health trainings within the Apopka farmworker community

Farmworkers across the United States face some of the highest rates of occupational injuries, illnesses, and accidents - including excessive pesticide exposure. Heightened exposure to pesticides has been associated with a variety of reproductive health challenges, including reduced fecundability and fertility, as well as detrimental effects to both fetal and child health - including preterm birth, low birth weight babies, and congenital and developmental abnormalities. In order to educate and empower farmworker women within the Apopka farmworker community, the Farmworker’s Association of Florida (FWAF) developed a reproductive health and pesticide safety training program. The purpose of this work was to conduct an evaluation of the trainings, understand how participants utilized and shared the information, and develop recommendations for improving the content of future trainings. Through community-based focus groups held entirely in Spanish, this research illuminated the unjust conditions faced by female farmworkers, the health consequences the participants, their families, and their friends have suffered, and the resources and networks that the FWAF is able to provide to this community. Furthermore, comprehensive feedback from trainings is presented, as is recommendations for future trainings and personal narratives of how the information was utilized and shared. A collaborative anthropology approach was applied throughout the conception, design, and implementation of this evaluation