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July 7, 2008
Field work: Clinic brings free care to farmworkers

By leslie king

Nurse Practitioner and undergraduate nursing students from Emory join dental hygiene, physical therapy and psychology students from other institutions to deliver 12 days of free health care to migrant farmworkers in south Georgia.

This is the 15th anniversary of what is known as the Farmworker Family Health Program.

The group partners with Ellenton Farmworker Clinic in Colquitt, Cook, Brooks and Tift counties, examining children at the summer school every morning and going to a different farmworker camp each evening.

Judith Wold, visiting professor in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, said cavities in teeth, low back pain and dermatological problems such as skin rashes are the primary problems they see in adults they treat. With children, it’s anemia and also cavities but “we have made a difference for the children with dental sealants on permanent teeth,” she says.

“We would like to expand the research possibilities,” Wold says, regarding the program’s future. “For the past several years we have had an MS/MPH student with us doing research on this population. This year the study centered on pesticide levels in children of migrant farmworkers.”