Abstract
Autoimmune diseases, such as asthma, are prevalent in industrialized populations. Although common, little is known about the causes of autoimmune disorders. Recent research has shown a co-occurrence of autoimmune diseases and the absence of parasites in contemporary industrialized populations. This study proposes to identify the co-relationship between parasitical infection and autoimmune disorders by describing their occurrence within agricultural migrant worker populations. Migrant workers are an appropriate study population in that they are at higher risk of parasitic infections due to the nature of their work, and that their primary origination is from Latin America, where they are more likely to have been exposed to infection. This study proposes that people who are infected with parasites will also be less likely to be suffering from asthmatic, and other autoimmune symptoms, because their immune systems are responding to an actual, rather than “perceived”, threat to immunity. The research design recorded the self-reported occurrence of infections, and autoimmune symptoms within a targeted migrant worker population, and described the relationships between the key variables. The research results did not support the study hypotheses, but revealed important facts about migrant farm worker health, and yielded important insights about conducting health field research in migrant farm worker communities.