skyline view of Minneapolis during the American Public Health Assocation annual meeting and expo. — *Minneapolis’s skyline during the American Public Health Association annual meeting and expo. Attribution to: Elise Ferrer/RESPIRAR*

The RESPIRAR Project made a debut at this year’s 2024 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Expo, held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from October 27 to 30, 2024. We were thrilled to share our work with nearly 12,000 public health professionals gathered from around the world to engage in and collaborate in conversations advancing public health for all.

“We were very pleased with this opportunity to introduce our work to a large public health professional audience and share our findings,” said Devon Payne-Sturges, principal co-investigator of the RESPIRAR Project.

Throughout the week, our interdisciplinary team members led presentations, joined roundtable discussions, and participated in the poster session.

Devon Payne-Sturges's keynote address references Heather McGhee’s book “The Sum of Us” to share how the author also applied systems thinking to understand complex problems like racism, which fosters zero-sum ideology.

Devon Accepts Environmental Health Career Award

Devon received a prestigious award recognizing her contributions to the field of environmental health. Following the award ceremony, Devon gave a keynote address, illustrating how systems thinking needs to address social inequalities driven by policy decisions.

“I used this opportunity to talk about how systems thinking principles, skills, and tools provide methods and frameworks for analyzing complex problems, like structural racism and environmental injustices,” said Devon.

“We as a public health community need to understand the causes of these complex problems instead of simply describing them. This is how we will develop strategies that lead to solutions.”

Presenting our Findings and Engaging in Conversations

Devon presented findings from surveys completed by migrant and seasonal farmworkers in Maryland. The preliminary results highlight demographic shifts, wage disparities, indicators of structural racism, and how COVID-19 trajectories for this group differed from the general population.

Stephanie Hernandez, the project coordinator for RESPIRAR, played a key role in collecting data directly from migrant and seasonal farmworkers in Maryland. Her firsthand experience provided invaluable context for understanding the structural barriers and lived realities that shape the research's findings.

"Knowing that the audience engaged deeply with our findings is incredibly validating,” said Stephanie, who was also at the conference. “This level of engagement reinforces the importance of continuing conversations about equity and farmworker health."

Dr. Raul Cruz-Cano shares participated in APHA’s poster session. The RESPIRAR Project’s poster shows an analysis exploring the impact of Oregon occupational health and safety rules implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Analyzing the Impact of Public Health Interventions

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers were deemed “essential” during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet little analytical evidence exists on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at protecting them. Dr. Raul Cruz-Cano, our project’s biostatistician, partook in the poster session, where he shared findings from an interrupted time series analysis exploring the impact of three Oregon occupational health and safety rules implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The preliminary analysis, completed by Raul and Devon, suggests that emergency temporary standards targeting all workplaces in Oregon were more effective in reducing the spread of the virus. This necessitates a re-evaluation of how ETS orders targeting farmworkers are designed, communicated, and implemented.

Bringing Public Health Ethics to the Forefront

*Elise Ferrer presents her paper talk arguing how racial capitalism continues to shape and maintain unequal health outcomes.*

Elise Ferrer, our Qualitative Social Science Research Assistant, helped lead one of the more engaging roundtable discussions, Public Health Ethics in Practice and Research, with Devon and Stephanie. As participants rotated from table to table to learn about the presenters’ work, Elise and the team spoke with attendees about the health realities faced by many migrant farmworkers through the lens of a historical and political analysis of public health.

“We argued that this type of analysis is actually an ethical imperative because it helps to ground the work and produce more effective solutions to health disparities,” said Elise.

Everyone who stopped by our table was “shocked and dismayed to learn about the scale of neglect, disregard, and abuse of farmworkers historically and today,” said Elise. “It was interesting to learn how much education needs to be done, even in a public health context.”

Highlighting the Role of Racial Capitalism in Health Inequities

Elise also presented a paper talk, arguing how racial capitalism continues to shape and maintain unequal health outcomes. Using the formation of modern farm labor camps in the 1930s and 1940s as a case study, she explained how poor conditions in these camps – crowded, dilapidated, owner-controlled – are intentional and central to maintaining a precarious labor force.

Moving Forward

Our team is grateful for the opportunity to meet with and convene with a diverse range of professionals attending this year’s APHA meeting and expo. Some participants included staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state-level health departments, while others came from international non-governmental organizations. We enjoyed introducing people to our work, highlighting health disparities, housing conditions, and labor arrangements experienced by the farmworkers we work with while partaking in conversations with other professionals engaged in this work.

This year’s APHA theme, Rebuilding Trust in Public Health and Science, is a timely reminder of the challenges we face in our field – political polarization, underfunding, distrust, and the rise of pseudoscience. But it’s also a call to action and one that we remain committed to answering. Together, we can help ensure an equitable future in public health to help all populations live longer, healthier lives.

Highlighting farmworker health findings at this year’s American Public Health Association’s annual meeting