A Lifeline for Farm Workers

There are more than one hundred thousand migrant and seasonal farm workers in Georgia whose daily reality is hard physical labor, pesticide exposure, and substandard housing conditions. Though they face complex health issues, access to care is scarce.

Each summer, students from Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing travel to Moultrie, Georgia, to provide health care services to these workers and their families. “The services that we bring to these individuals may be the only health care that they receive in a year’s time,” says Kathryn McCain Kite, administrative director for the Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing at the school.

By collaborating with the Ellenton Clinic in Colquitt County, the program treats nearly one thousand people each year. Since it began in 2002, 176 undergraduates and 220 nurse practitioner students have treated more than eight thousand workers and their families.

The program is supported through private funding, including a $50,000 gift from the Stahl Family Foundation and alumna Lynn Heilbrun Stahl 76C during Campaign Emory.