Research Symposium

BIO

Hi! My name is Fiona Giardino and I am originally from Jupiter, Florida. I am a second-year undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor's degree in public health with a minor in public administration. My presentation is titled "Preparing for the Next Pandemic" led by Dr. Joseph Grzywacz. This project details how Covid 19 has affected the farmworker community and how we can make recommendations to organizations to help the farmworkers more in the future. This project follows my two main interests which are public health and social justice as I am on the pre-law track and hope to go to law school after graduating from FSU.

Preparing for the Next Pandemic

Abstract

Preparing for the Next Pandemic is a public health research project dedicated to finding ways to improve the overall health of agricultural laborers, especially regarding disease response and prevention. The specific aim of this research is to provide potential recommendations to farm worker organizations that will lower mortality and morbidity of disease in the farm worker community. Thirty-three previous literatures were analyzed by UROP students, all of whom agreed on a single general analysis of each study. Then we interviewed executives of farm worker organizations. Using the all the information, potential recommendations for improving pandemic response and prevention in rural communities were constructed. These recommendations were then submitted to the National Center for Farmworker Health (NCFH) and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). We found that these communities lacked sufficient funding, proper leadership, hygienic knowledge, community trust, current medical technology, and training for modern practices. Potential recommendations that we speculate may improve farmworker health in rural communities include having an outside organization control the hiring process of CHWs within the community, provided that this organization hires respectable members within the community. Additionally, CHWs should be required to participate in continued education. Lastly, there should be more funds allocated to these organizations which would improve the whole system.

Keywords: Farmworkers, Pandemic, Community Health Workers