Presentations by Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center (PNASH):
1. Age Considerations: Impacts on Pesticide Exposure and Health Outcomes
2. How to Identify the Products Your Patients are Exposed to
3. Reporting, Surveillance, Legal Aspects of Pesticide Related Illnesses
4. The Work to Home Pesticide Exposure Pathway: How to Protect Pregnant Women and Children (English and Spanish)
5. Chronic Health Effects of Pesticide Exposure
MCN's Pesticide Clinical Guidelines and Pesticide Exposure Assessment Form assist in the recognition and management of acute pesticide exposures in primary care settings.
The pesticide guidelines were adapted from guidelines developed by Dr. Dennis H. Penzell, a former medical director of a Community and Migrant Health Center with experience in large-scale pesticide exposure incidents.
The Acute Pesticide Exposure Form was adapted from the data collection on an acute pesticide exposed patient tool developed by Matthew C. Keifer, MD, MPH, Director of the National Farm Medicine Center, appearing in the EPA's Recognition and Management of Pesticide Exposures, 6th Edition, EPA 2013.
These resources were developed with guidance from MCN's Environmental and Occupational Health Advisory Committee - a panel of healthcare professionals and researchers with expertise in pesticides and migrant health.
The following documents are a collection of the best resources available for taking a good occupational health history.
Use the link below to access MCN's Rapid Assessment Tool to help adolescent farmworkers identify agricultural tasks they perform in agriculture and facilitate clinician understanding about the health risks associated with it. Youth worker images are adapted and reproduced with permission from the National Children Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety. Images copyrighted through Marshfield Clinic, Marshfield, Wisconsin.
If computers and internet access are unavailable where patient care is provided, the worker assessment sheet and clinician information grid are available in PDF.
The importance of clinical diagnostic tools and biomonitoring of exposures to pesticides as well the role of clinicians in pesticide reporting and the challenges clinicians face in accurately diagnosing patients exposed to pesticides are described in a presentation by Matthew Keifer, MD, MPH and Amy K. Liebman, MPA. Click on the link for an APHA policy resolution underscoring the need for clinical diagnostic tools and biomomitoring of exposures to pesticides. This policy supports the information outlined by in the presentation.
This is an MCN online course. The primary objective is to ensure clinicians serving migrant and underserved communities are aware of general childhood agricultural safety and health concerns. This will be accomplished in a way that increases the clinicians’ ability to provide effective healthcare to their patients by assessing and understanding agricultural health risks.
An MCN/CDN webcast facilitated by Candace Kugel, FNP, CNM
HEAT ILLNESS CAN BE DEADLY. Every year, thousands of workers become sick from exposure to heat, and some even die. These illnesses and deaths are preventable.
OSHA has now posted a new Heat Illness Web Page that includes educational materials in English and Spanish, including low-literacy fact sheets for workers, worksite and community posters, and a public service announcement from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. The Web page also includes a video from Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels (in English with a Spanish transcript). OSHA will be posting additional materials on the Heat Illness Web page, including a lesson plan that employers can use to train their workers to stay safe in the heat and a heat index Smartphone app.
Matthew Keifer, MD, MPH, a board certified occupational medicine specialist and internationally renowned researcher regarding pesticides and worker health, overviews the importance of recognizing and managing pesticide exposure. To obtain free CME* credit, please complete this evaluation at the end of the webinar http://www.migrantclinician.org/national_webinar_eval. Sponsored by AgriSafe Network, Migrant Clinicians Network and the National Farm Medicine Center.
*Application for CME credit has been filed with the American Academy of Family Physicians. Determination of credit is pending.
Introductory overview of occupational health policy by Farmworker Justice.
This hour long webcast features Jennie McLaurin, MD, MPH – a former medical director of a migrant and community health center and a pediatrician with over 20 years of practice serving farmworker and immigrant populations.
An interactive lead case study by Susan Buchanan, MD, Linda Forst, MD, MPH, and Anne Evens, MS.
EPA has revoked regulations that permitted small residues of the pesticide carbofuran in food.
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.
A useful resource for health professionals interested in the health effects of exposure to specific chemicals and hazardous substances.
The AgriSafe Network Distance Learning Webinars aims to provide appropriate and timely training opportunities for Network members and affiliates. Through partnering with the National Rural Health Association and the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, the Network has been able to offer a series of fantastic speakers using the web-based Elluminate program.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing changes to the Worker Protection Standard (WPS), the agricultural worker regulation intended to provide basic workplace protection for millions of farmworkers.
FJF/MCN comments to the US Environmental Protection Agency against using human subjects to test pesticides.
Outlines the knowledge and skills that health professionals need to have about pesticides. This document is part of a national initiative aimed at ensuring that pesticides issues become integral elements of education and practice of primary care providers. English and Spanish
Objective, science-based information about pesticides - written for the non-expert.
Professional education for healthcare providers on health risks for adolescent farmworkers.
Maria Fernandez, 42, of Cancun, Mexico, sits outside a shoddy trailer she shares with other workers. "Everybody around here always has headaches, coughs, running noses," she said. "It has to do with that dust on the plants from the chemicals. You are always breathing it in."
Since many exposures come during those field applications, the risks - to farmworkers and to nearby residents who can be affected if the chemicals drift - can occur much more frequently. "You are working in one field, and the tractor passes in the next field spraying," says Epifanio, 58, a veteran Mexican farmworker who asked that his full name not be used, out of fear for his job. "The wind brings it to you. It happens to somebody around here every single day."
Probe of ill workers cited to expose flaws, Farmworker advocates say the state mishandled a case in which 20 migrants were sickened.