Public health anthropologist uses ethnography to improve farmworker safety

Amy Snipes in her office with a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of campesinos, symbolic of her commitment to improve farmworkers' health. We rely on them for virtually all of the fruits and vegetables that grace our tables. Yet our country's farmworkers are among the poorest of the working poor. Often living in sub-standard conditions and with little access to healthcare, many travel from job to job, chasing the harvest across America's heartland. Working long hours in the fields, they are constantly exposed, not just to hardship and severe weather but to dangerous pesticides. As Amy Snipes puts it, "Farmwork is more than an occupation. It is a condition of risk." Snipes should know.