Thursday, November 3 (12:00pm - 1:00pm)
SPH II: M1020 (will be livestreamed)
1415 Washington Heights

RSVP for the event at: https://forms.gle/J9rhJcCGBbjwQAkz9

Michigan Farmworker Project - Alexis Handal, PhD, MPH
The Michigan Farmworker Project (MFP) is a community-based participatory research project that aims to provide a deeper understanding of the complex intersection of working and living conditions with occupational and environmental health exposures among migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the state of Michigan. The MFP seeks to identify indicators of precarious employment and labor exploitation in the farmworker community and relate this understanding to farmworker’s psychosocial, occupational, environmental, and social risk factors. The MFP also aims to identify gaps in service provision and policy and programmatic needs, incorporating recommendations from the farmworker community to address their current working and living conditions. This seminar will provide an overview of the development and implementation of the MFP, the challenges faced, and preliminary findings and policy implications.

About Dr. Handal

Alexis J. Handal is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the UM School of Public Health. Her research expertise is in occupational and environmental epidemiology, reproductive epidemiology, social epidemiology, and global health; in particular, she works with Latinx and Indigenous populations in Latin America and in the United States. Dr. Handal studies the impact of large-scale agricultural production on the health of workers and surrounding communities, and with a particular focus on the health of female workers and pregnant workers and their families. Her community-engaged and participatory research approach uses a health equity lens focusing on understanding the interconnection between chemical exposures, and social and work stressors and supports in the context of precarious employment, on worker health and on maternal and child health and development. Alexis appreciates and promotes the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and mixed methods approaches in epidemiologic research. Over the past two decades, Dr. Handal has worked in Ecuador studying the impact of export-led flower production on maternal and child health and child development. Her early studies identified important factors that may adversely impact child health and development such as toxic exposures, maternal stress, and nutritional deficiencies and malnutrition. Her current NIEHS-funded birth cohort study, SEMILLA (Study of Environmental Exposure of Mothers and Infants Impacted by Large-Scale Agriculture) (R011ES026603), in collaboration with Dr. Fadya Orozco at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, examines the impact of fungicidal exposure and other critical social stressors associated with the presence of the flower industry on pregnancy and subsequent infant health. Dr. Handal also leads the Michigan Farmworker Project (MFP), in collaboration with Dr. Lisbeth Iglesias-Rios (post-doctoral fellow). The MFP is a CBPR program that examines the complex working and living conditions of farmworkers and their families in Michigan and the impact on farmworker health and well-being.