Trenton health fair brings health screenings to farm workers

July 16--From the milk we drink to the cotton T-shirts we wear, the labor of farmers vastly contributes to our daily lives.

That labor leaves them vulnerable to injury and infection.

"Farm workers are exposed to numerous safety, health, environmental, biological and respiratory hazards. These include vehicle rollovers, heat exposure, falls, musculoskeletal injuries, hazardous equipment, grain bins, unsanitary conditions, pesticides and many others," the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, said.

Some of these cases call for medical attention, potentially leading to the issue of an unaffordable bill.

"A majority of them don't have healthcare. They don't have health insurance, so they have no access to the healthcare that you and I have, ... so they pretty much treat themselves," said Dr. Yanbin Dong, associate director of Georgia Prevention Institute at Augusta University, during the 12th annual Costa Layman Health Fair in Trenton on Friday.

More members of farming households were without health insurance in 2015 than the rest of the U.S. population by about 2 percent, the United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, reported in its latest "Agricultural Resource Management Survey."

People commonly receive their health insurance plans through their employers. While a majority of farm operators are self-employed, there are ones who go through operators or rely on their spouses' jobs.

"In 2015, more than half of farm household members had health insurance coverage from an employment-based plan," the USDA said. "Farmers were slightly more likely than the general population in 2015 to purchase their health insurance directly from an insurance company and less likely to receive health insurance from a government-provided program, such as Medicare or Medicaid."

Agricultural workers' grueling schedules tend to prevent them from seeking preventive care.

"These are very busy workers," said Lee Ann Liska, Augusta University Medical Center's CEO, during Friday's health fair. "What is great about today is that we bring all the healthcare to them. If they were to try to access this either from us or in the community, it would take them weeks and months to get all of these appointments on the same day."

More than 3,000 screenings have been given to farmers in the rural South Carolina region since the program began 12 years ago.

Stations were arranged throughout a building at Costa Layman Farms. Skin, vision, dental, respiratory, HIV and bone density screenings, nutritional counseling and physical and occupational therapy were among the free services available.

"(For) many of these people, these are the only healthcare providers they'll see in the year," said Laura Brower, chief nursing officer of Augusta University Medical Center.

Some of the services that were provided aren't typically offered through regular preventative care.

"Having a dental assessment and having a bone density exam and having a spirometry test is unique," Liska said. "That's not always included in preventive care or just healthcare and screening. ... We know that here will be discoveries today of illness that they probably didn't know that they had."

The care the farmers received doesn't stop now that the event has ended.

"They follow up with the patients that they then identify there is problems with their blood pressure or their lab work, so it's screening, identifying, but it's also getting them the appropriate treatment afterward," Brower said.

For more information about the "Agricultural Resource Management Survey," visit www.bit.ly/2iykFxk.

Stephanie Turner is the features reporter with the Aiken Standard, where she covers health topics, the arts, authors and restaurants. She graduated from Valdosta State University in 2012.

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