Tobacco Use, Experiences and Knowledge Among Indigenous Mexican Agricultural Workers

The unique culture and languages of Indigenous Mexican immigrants to the United States, a substantial portion of the nation’s agricultural workforce, has limited participation of this population in tobacco and other health related research. Our established community-academic team [Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) and UCLA] developed and conducted a community survey (n = 200) from February – October 2024, in Spanish (n = 145), English (n = 10) or Mixteco (n = 45), aimed to understand tobacco use and knowledge among adults in this population. Participants (mean age 26 years; 71% married; 48% female; 43% ≤ elementary education) reported considerable tobacco use and second-hand exposure. Results illustrate gaps in knowledge regarding tobacco’s health harms and limited experience with tobacco prevention or control programming. Our findings suggest that prevention programs may provide greatest benefits for recent immigrants who rely exclusively on their native Indigenous language, and that cessation resources may be most needed by community members who have been in the US longer, have some Spanish proficiency and greater exposure to industry marketing. This work adds to the limited literature regarding this marginalized population’s health needs and will serve as a guide for our ongoing community-academic efforts to develop, implement, evaluate and disseminate culturally and linguistically tailored tobacco prevention and control programming for the Indigenous Mexican agricultural worker community in California and beyond.