San Luis Obispo County Uplifts Farmworker Health​

Originally published: January 2025

“It started as a small group of fifteen people,” recalls Demetrio Morales-Salazar, multilingual outreach coordinator at County of San Luis Obispo Public Health. With well-earned yet humble pride, he’s referring to the county’s Farmworker Outreach Task Force (FWOTF), which now convenes monthly with a growing invitation list of 160 people, representing more than 60 partner agencies, community-based organizations, agricultural industry representatives, local school systems and regional partners from Santa Barbara to Ventura. 

Each month, roughly 35 representatives on the task force come together to “improve access to essential services and resources, addressing both immediate needs and systemic barriers” faced by the farmworker community and broader Latino population across San Luis Obispo County.

Future of Public Health Ensures Service Continuity

The convenings are organized by Demetrio, whose position at the public health department is now funded entirely through the Future of Public Health program, ensuring these essential services continue. There, he leads the task force not only as an organizer but as a trilingual resource, speaking English, Spanish and Mixteco, an Indigenous non-written language shared by many of the farmworker families he serves in his role.

“Each of the attending organizations in the [Farmworker Outreach Task Force] are the trusted messengers within their respective communities. They help get the word distributed to the clients and patients that they’re serving.” ​

– Demetrio Morales-Salazar, Multilingual Outreach Coordinator

​Borne out of the COVID-19 pandemic and its influx of funds in 2020, the task force was created to connect farmworkers with information to keep themselves and their families safe. Hosting successful community-based mask and vaccination drives and distribution of COVID-19 test kits, the task force grew as they connected with more organizations also looking to support the growing population, whose health needs are significant, but whose communities face many barriers to access.

Expanding Needs for Indigenous Farmworker Families

The 2022 University of California, Merced and California Department of Public HealthFarmworker Health in California Report (PDF) referred to farmworkers as “the state’s most disenfranchised workforce” and added “there is concern about future health given the lack of health insurance, health access, and lack of screening for chronic conditions.”  

According to California’s Agricultural Employment Data, an estimated 95% of the state’s 400,000+ farmworkers identify as Latino with 25 percent of those also identifying as Indigenous, speaking Spanish and/or Indigenous non-written languages like Mixteco or Triqui at home. California’s South Coast Region, of which San Luis Obispo County is a part, employs a monthly average of 75,000 farmworkers, helping California produce 1/3 of the nation’s vegetables and nearly 2/3 of the nation’s fruits and nuts. 

The county’s 2024 Climate Resilience Study (PDF) reports 10,391 hired farmworkers in the 2022 USDA count, which doesn’t account for their family members, who likely share similar language and health access barriers. San Luis Obispo County Mexican Indigenous Community Study (PDF), which was supported by the public health department, estimates between 3,500 and 8,000 primary-Mixteco speakers in the county.

Mixteco Interpretation, Trainings and Videos Expand Access

As part of the task force’s monthly meetings, simultaneous interpretation in English and Spanish is provided, and they also offer trilingual support in Mixteco. Family and behavioral health organizations, food banks, Farm Bureau and industry growers, adult education programs and other social service agencies coordinate on improving access to resources for farmworkers and their families.  

The health department’s initiatives to support farmworkers and their families don’t end there. “One of the blessings of Future of Public Health funding is that we’ve been able to offer trilingual interpretation at our clinics, WIC and field nurse teams for Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health,” shares Leonardo (Leo) Ontiveros, health equity program manager. “We were able to offer Mixteco cultural awareness training to our staff and open those up to local organizations as well, helping us better connect with our community.” More than 150 public health department staff and 275 staff from partner agencies and community-based organizations received this training as a result of FoPH funding.

“With FoPH funds, we were able to offer Mixteco cultural awareness training to our staff and open those up to local organizations too, helping us better connect with our community.”​

– Leo Ontiveros, Health Equity Program Manager

In addition to coordinating the task force, Demetrio works closely colleagues including Olivia Montiano, communications coordinator, whose role is also fully funded by the Future of Public Health program, to produce a multilingual how-to video series called Healthy Voices. This series of 13 videos to-date range in topic from food security to oral health and car seat safety, but they are truly unique because they are shared in English, Spanish and Mixteco. ​

Demetrio and Olivia see them as a big win, especially because the Mixteco videos are shared and reshared by community-based organization partners online and via WhatsApp texts, helping meet this priority community where they are already connecting. Each episode is also shared to roughly 400 community partners, 500 agency staff and play in clinic waiting rooms and government center lobbies.

"We have a great understanding of the needs of the community.”

– Demetrio Morales-Salazar, Multilingual Outreach Coordinator​