A local college professor is getting a grant to study a part of the immigration problem.

Joel Meister, PhD, a professor at The University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is heading a study to look at health problems stemming from the increased migration around the U.S.-Mexico border.

 A $300,000 grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health will measure the health risks of border residents and workers to determine whether their living and working conditions are causing adverse health effects.

 “Those of us who were awarded this grant have been working along the border for more than 20 years,” said Dr. Meister, principal investigator of the study.  “Over the last several years, we have seen increasing militarization and a growth in the climate of fear,”

Dr. Meister got the idea for the study after speaking with members of community health centers who noticed that parents were not brining their children in to get immunizations.

“We have reason to believe that many farm workers who are legal residents of border communities are avoiding health care and other social services because they’re afraid of being harassed or they have family members who are not legal residents and they’re afraid of what might happen to them,” Dr. Meister said.  “We haven’t yet documented that these incidents are going on, but there’s good enough reason to justify a pilot study.”

 The study hopes to speak with both legal and undocumented people from Somerton, Gadsden and San Luis about the current health status of the farm workers in the community.

 Once completed, the study team will hold community meetings and focus groups to discuss the results with residents and give them the opportunity to offer input. Dr. Meister said he expects to complete the study by July 2008.

 “All of us in public health are engaged in politics – the politics of health – every day,” Dr. Meister said.  “For example, hundreds of border-crossers are dying in the desert every year. If any other group of people were dying in those numbers in Southern Arizona, we would have declared an epidemic emergency long ago and done something about it.  But we haven’t done anything effective or meaningful, really, and that’s a political, as well as a public health, issue – and a human tragedy.”