About UC IPM

Pesticide Safety Education Program: 2000

To effectively reach large numbers of agricultural workers with safety information, Pesticide Education Program (PEP) staff developed a training model that prepares individuals from within agricultural worker communities to train pesticide handlers and agricultural fieldworkers. Participants in these train-the-trainer workshops spend nearly 8 hours learning about pesticides and how to train agricultural workers to protect themselves from hazards associated with handling pesticides or working in areas where there might be pesticide residues.

To date, PEP has conducted a total of 175 train-the-trainer workshops, with 4,410 community members participating. Slightly more than one-third of the workshops have been conducted in Spanish. Participant feedback shows that the workshops’ information and training techniques will be extended to more than 813,000 agricultural workers in California.

Under California law, these workshops qualify participants to conduct pesticide safety-related training for people working in production agriculture, commercial greenhouses and nurseries, and forests. Using two comprehensive post-test surveys, PEP is now evaluating the degree of success achieved by train-the-trainer workshop participants as they conduct their own training.

PEP has an ongoing schedule of train-the-trainer workshops. Anyone interested in enrolling in one of these workshops can find a schedule on the UC IPM Web page.

UC IPM's Pesticide Education Program (PEP) sponsored two full-day workshops in Merced and San Luis Obispo counties in summer 2000 to help health care professionals learn to recognize and manage pesticide-related illnesses and injury. In addition, methods of diagnosing pesticide illness and the requirements for reporting incidents of pesticide illness or injury were covered. Participants included physicians, nurses, other health care professionals, and community members from a wide variety of organizations. Additional workshops are planned for 2001.

Faculty include Patrick O'Connor-Marer and Jennifer Weber, UC IPM PEP; Richard Ames, Chief of the Pesticide Epidemiology Unit, California EPA Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA); Rupali Das, Public Health Medical Officer, California Department of Health Services; William Ngai, Public Health Medical Officer, OEHHA; Michael O'Malley, Medical Consultant, California Department of Pesticide Regulation; and Barry Wilson, Professor, UC Davis Department of Environmental Toxicology.

The Pesticide Education Program (PEP) team successfully developed and conducted courses aimed at helping limited-English speaking farmers to read and understand pesticide labels. This project, funded by the Department of Pesticide Regulation, was a feasibility study on the use of English as a Second Language (ESL) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) principles in courses to improve pesticide label comprehension.

Diane Clarke's research provided PEP team members with information and resources on ESL and ESP. The team studied how these principles could apply to teaching pesticide label comprehension and then convened a committee of people with ESL/ESP expertise who could give input on developing training materials and a curriculum. Jennifer Weber and Melanie Zavala led the curriculum development.

The Monterey County Department of Agriculture recruited participants for the Spanish-language program. Jennifer Weber taught this course four evenings a week over a two-week period. Michael Yang and Richard Molinar of the Fresno County UC Cooperative Extension Office recruited participants for the Hmong language course that Michael taught on two evenings each week for a six-week period.

Course participants took a pre-test that measured their ability to read and understand pesticide labels. A similar test was used at the completion of the course to measure the changes. On average, participants showed an 82% gain in their ability to understand pesticide labels.e been conducted in Spanish. Participant feedback shows that the workshops’ information and training techniques will be extended to more than 813,000 agricultural workers in California.