The Socioeconomic Context of Exposure and Response to Environmental Risk

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Abstract
This research examined the association between socioeconomic factors and the risk responses of 437 Mexican immigrant farmworkers chronically exposed to agricultural pesticides. Past explanations for patterns of risk responses have focused on intra-individual factors, and usually have minimized the possible influence of socioeconomic circumstances on adaptation to risk. Immigrant farmworkers from a variety of occupational contexts participated in this investigation and were expected to systematically differ in their response to pesticide exposure depending on socioeconomic circumstances, judgments about the risk situation, and the subjective evaluation of occupational conditions. Analyses revealed that beliefs about the risks of pesticides were not randomly distributed throughout this sample, but varied with socioeconomic factors. For example, workers who were in more limited economic circumstances judged future health effects to be more likely, and believed that safety precautions were less effective. Additionally, socioeconomic circumstances modified the relationship between intra-individual factors and response to risk. The discussion considers several possible links between socio-economic factors and risk adaptation, and implications for environmental policy.