Why do farmworkers delay treatment after debilitating injuries? Thematic analysis explains if, when, and why farmworkers were treated for injuries

Abstract

Training on timely treatment, including notification of supervisors, may help reduce treatment delay for farmworkers.

“The Only Thing I Wish I Could Change Is That They Treat Us Like People and Not Like Animals”: Injury and Discrimination Among Latino Farmworkers

“…Others have described farmworkers as working while in chronic pain, despite injury. 14,34,37,38 In particular, farmworkers' financial vulnerability may drive their treatment seeking, because they cannot afford to miss out on payment in a reality where their employers may refuse to pay them. However, in at least one study, employers were found to be the driver of how quickly workers received treatment where growers seemed to promote immediate treatment among injured farmworkers compared to contractors who were associated with treatment delays.…”

From the Horse Worker’s Mouth: A Detailed Account of Injuries Experienced by Latino Horse Workers

“…The fact that the proportion of workers in our sample experiencing any injury was much greater than other samples suggests that without prompts this worker group may define an injury as a severe event resulting in medical attention. Indeed, the tendency to delay seeking treatment and minimize injury or pain has been well documented among immigrant workers [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Future research should clearly define ''injury'' to ensure that the full injury burden of the population is accurately assessed.…”

“…The former was adapted from the BLS [35]: ''Thinking about your current job on the horse farm, in the past 12 months have you had a work-related injury that required medical attention?'' The latter was included to capture less severe injuries because this worker group is known to delay and/or avoid seeking treatment [19]: ''Thinking about your current job at the horse farm, in the past 12 months have you had a work-related injury that did not require medical attention, but that required you to stop working for a few minutes to care for yourself or recover (administer first aid?).'' If the participant answered yes to either type of injury, he/she was asked to report how many of each were experienced over the past year.…”

“…Third, whether medical care was received was not indicative of whether it was necessary. Other studies have found that farmworkers may only seek treatment when injuries are so debilitating that they could not continue working [19]. Consequently, future research could gather more objective measures of injury severity, worker coping mechanisms, and available resources.…”

“…Because numerous factors may affect a farmworker's decision whether to seek treatment-including the desire to continue work, the presence of a coworker, the presence of blood, the involvement of chemicals or pesticides [19,20], healthcare access and costs [21], and a preference for self-treatment [22,23]-studies that define injury as one in which medical care was received (such as BLS data) 1 likely fall short in describing the injury burden in this population [24].…”