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Health Outreach Partners’ fourth national needs assessment of farmworker health outreach. This groundbreaking report provides a compelling summary of national data focused solely on farmworker outreach programs and the farmworker communities they serve. This is the only project of its kind that provides a national snapshot on the needs of farmworker health outreach programs.  Attached you will find a press release with additional details concerning this important report.

We encourage you to share this report with your peers by:

  • Posting a link to the report in the “news” or “resource” sections of your website;
  • Circulating the attached press release via your listservs; and/or
  • Announcing this report in your upcoming organizational newsletter.

The valuable data included in this report can be leveraged for reporting purposes, funding proposals, program planning, and advocacy efforts to benefit the migrant and seasonal farmworker population.

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Research projects and studies conducted by the Pacific Northwest Agricultural Health and Safety Center at the University of Washington.

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The Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) has recently released its fall issue of Needle Tips, http://www.immunize.org/nt with news and information for all health professionals who give vaccines.  Also available is Vaccinate Adults, http://www.immunize.org/va  a condensed version ofNeedle Tips for those who work only with adult patients. 

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Our topic for the month is H1N1 vaccinations.  Dealing with both seasonal flu vaccinations and the constant swirl of information, availability, and updates around the H1N1 vaccine has made this a challenging season flu season for providers.  We offer direct links to several CDC web pages and one patient flyer from the CDC.

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Again, Dr. Deborah Wexler, the Executive Director of the Immunization Action Coalition provides further reading and research on the topic of parental hesitation.  In the second half, we take a brief look at adults specifically:  why do adults hesitate to receive vaccines?  Are these barriers the same as for parents on behalf of their children?  Please feel free to send responses, comments, thoughts, and ideas to the listserv administrator atkath@healthletter.com. If you send comments, we will follow up with your responses and ideas in the next listserv.

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A core set of information appropriate for reviewing the operation and performance of health centers.

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To address the critical need for relevant information about the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker (MSFW) population nationwide, the Migrant Clinicians Network developed an innovative project to test a set of methodologies for collecting and analyzing MSFW data. The methods used in this project will enhance planning capability for health services by gathering up-to-date, locally specific descriptive profiles of the MSFW population eligible for health care services and provide a mechanism to determine future trends that can affect health services delivery and formulation of health care plans, staffing decisions, outreach activities, preventive care emphases, budgeting and appropriate service hours. The methodologies tested employ systems that can be self-sustaining, providing continual, timely updates at a local level where such information is most useful. The systems foster collaboration between local service providers, encouraging Migrant Health Centers (MHCs) and others who serve the MSFW population to work together to share information which can be beneficial to all.

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First of all, this month we offer some reminders for resources that are available to help you navigate, with your clients, between immunization requirements in the US and those from neighboring Mexico.   Second, we guide you to a link on the World Health Organization website where you can check other countries’ immunization requirements and schedules.   This may give you a starting point for understanding your migrant clients’ immunization histories. Third, we offer a sample bi-lingual parent-held pediatric vaccine record.  Remember, “the most reliable source of vaccine information on any particular individual is that individual! Contrary to popular belief, parents DO carry portable vaccination records when given them. This is particularly true for immigrant families, who are used to carrying important documents and who realize the potential of revaccination if records are unavailable to the local provider.”  Jennie McLaurin, MD Finally, in the season of giving, our gift offer to the clinics participating in Immunization Initiatives  send us the English patient-held vaccine record you use for your clients, and we will translate it into Spanish. We offer this first to the clinics participating in Immunization Initiatives, and to the first six clinics who contact us.  Email the listserv administrator to make arrangements at kath@healthletter.com

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The Lancet's H1N1 Resource Center is a collaborative effort by the editors of over 40 Elsevier-published journals and 11 learned societies who have agreed to make freely available on this site any relevant content. All papers have been selected by a Lancet editor, grouped by topic and fulltext pdfs made available to download free of charge.
Charles W. Schmidt, Swine CAFOs & Novel H1N1 Flu: Separating Facts from Fears, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 117, Number 9, September 2009
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A broken system leaves immigrant workers invisible -- and in danger. High Country News, 8/2009

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Welcome to Immu-News, the Immunization Initiatives listserv, a monthly resource for the community of participants in this project. For now, this is post-only listserv (in other words, you will get only one e-mail per month in your mailbox, instead of floods of daily discussions) but we hope to evolve into a more interactive form, something that will truly be of service to you as each of you searches for ways to improve your ability to record and access immunization data, to increase immunizations provided to your clients, and thus to improve the health of your community.

Our topic for this month is introduced by Dr. Jennie McLaurin, MCN’s Migrant Health Specialist and the Project Director for the Immunization Initiative. We include examples and a source for patient-held immunization records, and two articles on the topic. Please feel free to send responses, comments, thoughts, and ideas to the listserv administrator at kath@healthletter.com. If you send comments, we will follow up with your responses and ideas in the next listserv.

Immu-News is also pleased to feature Grounded in Practice, highlights from the real world clinics participating in Immunization Initiatives. We begin with San Benito Health Foundation in Hollister, CA. We invite you to send suggestions, stories, examples of things that have worked to improve immunization practices in your clinic. Send your ideas to kath@healthletter.com

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Our June topic is IIS or Immunzaion Registries. Between August and October of 2008, immunization initiative staff at MCN conducted structured interviews with all State Immunization Coordinators or their designated contact persons in an effort to identify state programs that address the immunization needs. In response to the question “does your state have an electronic immunization registry?” we found that 42 states have registries, six states are in the process of implementing them, and two states do not have registries. Out of 42 states with registries, 37 are in both public and private settings and 31 are “birth to death” registries, including both children and adults. To view report, go to: http://www.migrantclinician.org/toolsource/resource/interviews-state-programs-addressing-immunization-needs.html

We offer three articles that discuss the progress of using immunization registries to improve recording and access of immunization data. Click on the links below to access the full articles.

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Our May topic is “What Do Migrants from Mexico, Central and South America Think About Immunization?” MCN has conducted several focus groups in recent years on this topic, and we share with you, in two papers, what we learned in these focus groups.

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In July of 2005, MCN conducted a focus group with migrant women in a new receiving community on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to help understand their experiences regarding immunization.

The focus group was held at the one of the participant’s home, an established immigrant household. The town house apartment located in a growing immigrant neighborhood offered a comfortable, safe and trusting environment for the group’s participants.

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The following report summarizes research conducted by the Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) in the summer of 2008. The report is an effort to identify state programs that address the immunization needs of adults and migrant and seasonal farmworkers across the country.

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An expert panel review of the scientific literature on lead and health - Environmental Health Perspective, March 2007

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The Immunization Initiative at MCN promotes improving childhood, adolescent, and adult immunization coverage levels among migrant and other mobile underserved populations. During the course of the initiative, anecdotal and documented evidence of an increase in the Hispanic indigenous population in United States and outside California surfaced from various sources. A separate initiative emerged, to design and develop a piece of educational material specifically for this population. This article, published in Streamline (March-April, 2009) discusses this initiative.

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EPA has revoked regulations that permitted small residues of the pesticide carbofuran in food.

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FIOB has a good presentation that they use to teach the general community about indigenous cultures. This PowerPoint could be used to teach staff about indigenous languages.

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Residential lead (Pb) contamination, resulting from decades-long use of leaded gasoline and lead-based paint, is likely to be present in soils in most urban areas. A screening level sampling effort demonstrated that Lubbock, Texas, USA, like other cities of its age and size, has areas of elevated soil Pb.

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This organization, based in Woodburn, Oregon, has 3 community outreach workers and a receptionist in their office who speaks indigenous languages (Mixteco Alto and Mixteco Bajo). 

 

They utilize the following strategies to communicate with clients who speak indigenous languages:

1        Audio Materials: The Oregon Law Center puts important information and scenarios on tapes and CDs in indigenous languages for their clients

2        Radio: The employees at the Oregon Law Center who speak indigenous languages create radio ads for local Spanish language stations in indigenous languages.  They also participate on 2-3 radio shows per month. 

3        Presentations: They also do around 5 community presentations per month for workers (some of which are done in indigenous languages). 

4        Identifying and training interpreters for indigenous languages: They collaborate with the Oregon Judicial Department to provide training to become court interpreters for people who speak both an indigenous language and Spanish. 

 

Contact Information:

230 W. Hayes St.

Woodburn, OR 97071

Julie Samples juliesamps@yahoo.com

(503) 981-0336

1-800-973-9003

The World Health Organization (WHO) “World Oral Health Report 2003” emphasized that despite great improvements in the oral health status of populations across the world, problems persist. As knowledge is a major vehicle for improving the health of the poor in particular, the WHO Oral Health Programme focuses on stimulating oral health esearch in the developed and developing world to reduce risk factors and the burden of oral disease, and to improve oral health ystems and the effectiveness of community oral health programmes.

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Describes the adverse health effects of lead in workers with blood-lead levels of 5-10 ug/dL and recommend changing OSHA’s medical removal trigger of 60 ug/dL. 

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A training guide for Promotor(a) programs from Migrant Health Promotion.
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The US Department of Health and Human Services has published the Community Health Status Indicators Report, which contains health indicator data on over 200 measures for every county in the United States.
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Welcome to the HepTalk Listserv. For July, we offer two articles about immunizing adolescents. Adolescents are often seen by many of you in your clinics for a variety of reasons, from prenatal care to sports physical exams, presenting a good opportunity to see if they have had their Hep B shots.

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In May 2005, near its beginning, the HepTalk Project presented a position paper, "Hepatitis Screening, Immunization and Testing for Mobile Populations and Immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean" It has been updated with new immunization guidelines. This publication clarifies standard hepatitis immunization and testing recommendations for these populations.

HepQuick, also newly updated, incorporates specifics for mobile clients and recent immigrants from the position paper.

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This site is presented as a free medical Spanish immersion, with vocabulary including greetings, history, examination, and everyday speech, all with translation and audio. It is designed to be helpful for a variety of medical personnel. In addition to introducing Spanish medical terms, this site will hopefully improve fluency and even cultural competency.

Each dialogue consists of a few statements from the patient, the patient's family, and healthcare providers. Click to hear my voice and pronunciation. Then, repeat aloud everything you hear. When listening to Spanish medical phrases, feel free to use the pause button, and, of course, replay the recordings when needed.

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