influenced by a wide range of factors, including the availability of health care; issues
such as lifestyle, nutrition, housing, work, education, income; as well as mechanisms
related to societal power, social identity, social status (including race, class and gender),
control over life circumstances and migration. In Canada, the liminality of temporary
migrants (which is constituted by a confluence of factors including their immigration
status, precarious employment status, poverty, radicalized status and poor social inte-
gration
—
see Preibisch and Otero
2014
) heightens their difficulty in accessing health
care and increases their vulnerability to health risks. Our study aims to build on a
growing body of evidence from numerous qualitative studies about the vulnerabilities
of migrant farm workers to provide some quantitative breadth to this scholarship using
the determinants of health perspective.
Our survey
2
was carried out using a standardized questionnaire, which was admin-
istered face-to-face to a purposive nonrandom sample of migrant workers by the
research team
3
. Workers were recruited verbally by interviewers in English and/or
Spanish, with an emphasis on reaching workers from both Mexico and the Caribbean in
areas with high numbers of agricultural migrant workers (Leamington, Niagara-on-the-
Lake, Simcoe and Bradford, Ontario). Respondents were also invited to provide open-
ended comments about their health issues and experiences in an unstructured interview
format following the administration of the questionnaire.
Informed by the determinants of health approach, the standardized questionnaire
content focused on three main areas pertaining to health, in addition to a number of
socio-demographic and other general questions. Questions addressing the
worker
’
s
health status
included the following: symptoms, existing or previous diagnoses and
treatment received (e.g. TB, STIs, etc.), family histories, sexual, reproductive and
prenatal health (women), drug and alcohol consumption, risk behaviours and protec-
tions, depression and anxiety, health awareness, health concerns, gender-specific health
concerns and experiences, etc. The second section of the questionnaire concentrated on
occupational health risks/protections/rights
and included a series of questions
pertaining to food handling practices, housing and working conditions, field sanitation,
fertilizer use, pesticide exposure, muscular-skeletal health, health and safety training,
accidents and workplace incidents, safety practices and equipment used/provided,
repatriations due to illness/accident, conflicts with employers related to health, health
2
This study was funded by CERIS Ontario Metropolis Centre for Excellence in Immigration and Settlement.
3
The research team administered questionnaires to the migrant populations, taking issues of trust, accessibil-
ity, language and literacy into consideration. The principal investigator and coinvestigator, the university and
