These studies employed data from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risks (SENSOR)-Pesticides Program and found a nearly twofold higher rate of acute pesticide poisoning among women working in agriculture compared to men. Two US studies investigated the rate of acute pesticide poisonings among women and men working in agriculture between 19 and 19. įemale farmworkers may be at greater risk for adverse health outcomes than their male counterparts, perhaps in part due to potential for increased occupational hazards such as pesticide exposures.

In a recent study among hops workers in southwestern Idaho, we estimated that more than 50% of the farm labor force was comprised of women. In Idaho, estimates of the magnitude of these changes at the state and local levels are scarce, but our observations suggest a similar pattern. In the USA, the proportion of women in the agricultural workforce grew from 25% in 1989 to 32% in 2016. This trend is not limited to the developing world. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that women comprise over 40% of the total agricultural workforce in the developing world: in the Near East and North Africa, the female share of the agricultural workforce rose from ~30% in 1980 to over 40% in 2011, and from ~45% to nearly 50% in East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa over the same period. Over the past several decades, there has been a marked increase in the percentage of farmworkers who are women, a phenomenon known as “the feminization of agriculture”. Social and cultural characteristics associated with their ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, social class, and rural location often occur alongside occupational hazards, including opportunities for injuries and potential exposures to pesticides, fertilizers, and other chemicals diesel fuels and exhaust ultraviolet radiation biologically active dusts and zoonotic viruses and bacteria.

Farmworkers may experience disparities related to health and well-being, as they face a unique intersection of risk factors that have been linked to adverse health outcomes.

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