PPDC Farmworker & Clinician Work Group Meeting Notes February 12, 2021 Attendance Name Organization Attended Walter Alarcon The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (CDC-NIOSH) X Ruben Arroyo California Agricultural Commissioners and Sealers Association (CACASA) Kaci Buhl Oregon State University, Department of Environmental & Molecular Toxicology X Allison Crittendon American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) X Ricardo Davalos Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) X Africa Dorame-Avalos Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. X Jeannie Economos Farm Workers Association of Florida X Iris Figueroa Farmworker Justice X Melanie Forti Rogenhofer Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) X Katie Karberg MD Bayer Crop Science X Patsy Laird Syngenta/ American Association of Pesticide Safety Educators (AAPSE) X Amy Liebman Migrant Clinicians Network X Dominica Navarro Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides X Mily Trevino-Sauceda (Co-Chair) Alianza Nacional de Campesinas X Emma Torres Campesinos Sin Fronteras X Jennifer Weber Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) Maricopa County Cooperative Extension The University of Arizona X EPA Co-Chairs: Steve Schaible and Carolyn Schroeder Other Attendees: EPA Office of Pesticide Programs: Shannon Jewell, Carla Theriault, Meleia Rose, Aidan Black, Ana Rivera-Lupianez, Tracy Lantz, and Thomas Lopiano 1 ------- Agenda Greetings/introduction-15 mins ¦ Name, organization, what is one thing you hope to get out of this workgroup? ¦ TEAMs Housekeeping ¦ Ground rules Background/refresher from last PPDC meeting-10 mins ¦ Issues and what EPA has done thus far ¦ How we came up with draft charge questions Membership and roles-15 mins ¦ Mily's Co-chair role ¦ EPA Co-chairs roles and roles of other EPA staff ¦ Who is in the room and why? (i.e., names, organization/representation, and perspective to bring to the workgroup) High level goals: What does the workgroup wants to accomplish-30 mins ¦ Revisit Charge Questions ¦ Goal setting: What do we want to accomplish by October 27-28 PPDC meeting? ¦ Consider consulting outside experts beyond workgroup members Farm workers Physicians Farmers/Growers/Employers Environmental public health educators How does WG want to operate-10 mins ¦ Revisit ground rules ¦ Use of TEAMS channel and virtual meetings ¦ Future meeting dates (frequency and length) Action items /homework-5 mins 2 ------- Greetings/introduction Members introduced themselves and identified what they hoped to get out of this workgroup. Comments included the hope to... o Learn from each other o Cultivate new partnerships/connections and expand collaboration between workgroup member organizations and EPA o Ensure cultural context is considered in farmworker/clinician training o Develop resources for healthcare providers and ensure that clinicians are getting the education and training that they need o Ensure WPS and training meets farmworker needs o Improve training materials for how to report and identify issues related to pesticides o Identify resources to distribute to Native American communities o Use workgroup time as efficiently as possible to come up with concrete steps and actions for moving forward Background/refresher from last PPDC meeting EPA Co-Chairs presented slides reviewing material and the charge questions from the last PPDC meeting (i.e., Oct. 29, 2020), revised (narrowed the scope) as a result of the PPDC session discussion: o How should EPA go about addressing new reporting requirements specified in PRIA 4 for PRIA set-asides for worker protection activities? o How should EPA evaluate appropriateness & effectiveness of worker protection activities? o How should EPA engage stakeholders in decisions to fund such worker protection activities? o How and when should EPA reach out to stakeholders, including worker community-based organizations, in their development of analyses on appropriateness and effectiveness of such activities? Background included PRIA set-asides, reporting requirements, and cooperative agreements funded with the three PRIA set-asides. o Additional background was requested and provided on PRIA-funded cooperative agreements regarding which entities are recipients of the funds Membership and roles Mily introduced herself and her role as co-chair EPA co-chairs to serve as facilitators to the workgroup and help answer questions/provide information about EPA policies, rules and processes as relevant to the workgroup needs. 3 ------- Mily pointed out that membership represents many groupsfarmworker advocacy organizations, universities, companies with a variety of experiences and expertiseand it is important that the workgroup works together towards the common goal of helping constituents High level goals: What does the workgroup want to accomplish? Revisited Charge Questions: The charge questions were reviewed There was a brief discussion on potentially including non-agricultural workers (i.e. hospitality workers exposed to antimicrobial products), because PRIA funds come from registrants of non-agricultural products, too. o The importance of clarifying the workgroup's focus was emphasized o It was also pointed out that by focusing on agricultural workers with the charge questions could still lead to materials and insights that are transferable/adaptable to other industries/workers (as well as the PRIA set-aside funded partnership and pesticide safety education cooperative agreements) o Further discussion needed to consider noncertified applicators training (which are pesticide handlers of both ag and non-ag products); point made that there is some overlap of the workforce to be trained in pesticide safety but it is required by the Certification of Pesticide Applicator rule (instead of the WPS). A point of order was made to keep language inclusive when discussing "clinicians", because it is not just physicians but all types of healthcare providers (HCPs) Goal setting: What do we want to accomplish by October 27-28, 2021 PPDC meeting? Goal of providing recommendations back to EPA by end of October Did not get to discuss in detail and will revisit next meeting Considered consulting outside experts beyond workgroup members: There was a discussion about who the workgroup may want to invite to provide input or speak at a future meeting o Suggestions included health care providers and farmworkers ¦ Robin Tutor Marcom at NC AgroMedicine was specifically recommended There was a comment made about utilizing focus groups as an evaluation tool to provide feedback as part of this workgroup process Multiple members expressed the importance of hearing from farmworkers directly and there was a discussion about the issues of ensuring interpretation/translation for Spanish-speaking farmworkers o There was a comment made about potentially hosting Spanish language sub- meetings o Inquiries have been made into EPA resources to support this 4 ------- How does WG want to operate? Monthly meetings (~8 total), meet for 90 min It was recommended that each meeting stick to specific topics so the workgroup is not trying to do too much on a call o Workgroup to help form each meeting agenda There was a request that copies of the TEAMs chats be kept Meetings to be held using the virtual platform, Microsoft TEAMS; o EPA has created a TEAMS channel, o Documents to be posted to the TEAMS channel o A next step is for EPA to send an email to get everyone added to TEAMs/create free accounts Next meeting scheduled for March 12 o Ground rules to be revisited Action items EPA to follow up with: Send instructions to create TEAMs account and invitation to join TEAMs channel o Draft meeting notes o Check into options for Spanish-language interpreter services for future meeting o Post files on TEAMs channel prior to next meeting: ¦ Roster ¦ Presentations ¦ Charge questions ¦ Draft meeting notes Co-chairs: o Draft agenda for next meeting ¦ To continue from where discussion left off Workgroup members homework (to prepare for March 12 discussion): o Create TEAMS account o Send Co-chairs agenda items for next meeting o Brainstorm topics of focus for future meetings (per Jeannie's idea) o Brainstorm specific goals for our workgroup o Gather names of suggested experts to contribute to the workgroup o Brainstorm ground rules for the workgroup (i.e. camera norms, using chat and hand raising, arriving on time etc.) 5 ------- |