The University of California’s Possibility Lab, in collaboration with the TODEC Legal Center, has produced a report that explores how Latino immigrant farm, warehouse and service workers in the Inland Empire and Coachella Valley perceive and experience health, or its absence, along with the challenges they face in attaining it.
The study is part of a larger research initiative called the Firsthand Framework for Policy Innovation, dedicated to creating ground-breaking policies based on the idea that “the people who are closest to social problems that require innovative policy are the ones who know the most about how to solve those problems” said Dr. Naomi Levy, Director of Community Engaged Research at the Possibility Lab and Professor of Political Science at the Santa Ana University, during the presentation of the fieldwork results last Fall in the Coachella Valley Library.
With this concept in mind, the researchers facilitated nine focus group discussions and three town halls throughout the region, gathering 1,534 first-hand indicators that allowed them to establish the presence or absence of health in the communities. Many reflect the latter: “People get sick because some companies put too many chemicals on their plants or vegetables (Low Desert).”…