Dr. Anabel Rodriguez

Research and Consulting Interests
- Agricultural working populations (hard-to-reach, limited English proficiency)
- Immigrant workers, immigrant health, migrant populations
- Occupational safety, health, and well-being training, education, program evaluation
- Occupation as a social determinant of health
- Occupational Epidemiology, Injury Epidemiology, Total Worker Health®
- Infectious, emerging diseases (tuberculosis, bovine tuberculosis, COVID-19, influenza, brucellosis)
- Vaccine access, equity, utilization, hesitancy, and barriers
- Health disparities; access barriers in rural regions

Dr. Rodriguez's "why"
This work is full circle to me. I see my parents, my siblings, my family, and myself in these workers. Having the lived experience as a migrant farmworker and daughter of Mexican immigrants combined with the formal training and experience in occupational epidemiology, positions me in the middle of these two radically different worlds. Research studies, outreach, and training programs among agricultural workers and their families are vital because they highlight needs, systemic barriers, and identify gaps in the literature to be addressed. But most importantly, they humanize the story of this essential invisible workforce.

Favorite Project
Our team leveraged funds from the USDA Farm and Food Worker Relief Program, to distribute one-time $600 COVID-19 relief payment for wages and time lost during the pandemic for agricultural workers. Our team has been assigned payments for 5,000 agricultural workers across the Rio Grande Valley, Texas Panhandle, Eastern New Mexico, Western Kansas, and Southern Idaho. To date, our team has enrolled more than 4,500 agricultural workers, distributing over $2.7 million in relief payments. In addition, our communications team is filming a short documentary highlighting the lives and struggles of agricultural workers and their families and the impacts of community outreach like the USDA relief program.