SALINAS, California. Although the majority of the planting and harvesting is done by immigrants from Mexico, this coastal region, which was made famous by the novelist John Steinbeck, is commonly referred to as America’s salad bowl.
It made sense for Taylor Farms, a significant international supplier of packaged salads and chopped vegetables, to be the first to offer its employees a new form of healthcare that may be very useful in the smartphone age: cross-border medical consultations via an app.
The business is one of the first clients of a new organization called MiSalud, which links Taylor Farms staff members who speak Spanish with Mexican doctors and mental health therapists. Instead of prescribing drugs and without a U.S. license, providers act as health coaches who can offer guidance and, if necessary, collaborate with a U.S.-based physician.
About 5,600 of Taylor Farms’ 6,400 employees who work in locations where MiSalud is now available have registered for the app, and 2,300 have used it at least once, according to Amy Taylor, who has been in charge of the firm’s wellness project since 2014 and is the daughter-in-law of company founder Bruce Taylor. Employees and up to three family members can use the service for free.
According to Amy Taylor, the business hopes the software, which is a component of a larger wellness program, can help workers maintain their health while controlling labor expenses such as health care. After the program has been running for two years, she arranges a thorough evaluation.
An important issue for the state’s agricultural sector is the health of farmworkers. Researchers from the University of California-Merced conducted a study in 2022 that examined the health of over 1,200 farmworkers and discovered that 47% of women and 37% of men reported having at least one chronic condition, including typical ailments like anxiety, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
From fieldworkers and truckers to retail packing and office workers, Taylor said her company’s workforce reflects the study’s conclusions. According to her, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and mental health are the main health issues among employees.
Taylor remarked of the company’s workers, “These are the people who are feeding America healthy food.” They ought to be healthy as well.
Bismarck Lepe, a Stanford graduate and serial entrepreneur from a family of migrant farmworkers, was the driving force behind MiSalud, or My Health. His family would travel between Mexico, California, and Washington state to gather fruit until he was six years old, at which point they moved to Oxnard, California. He observed that because the U.S. system was too complicated to utilize and insurance coverage was too costly or difficult to locate, family members and acquaintances frequently put off getting medical attention until they could return to Mexico.
According to Lepe, my mother still favors receiving her medical care in Mexico. For her, it’s simpler.
In 2021, Lepe and her co-founders Wendy Johansson and Cindy Blanco Ochoa established MiSalud Health with $5 million from Melinda French Gates’s Pivotal Ventures venture capital fund, which specializes in social-impact investing. Ulu Ventures and Samsung Next have since joined as investors.
According to Johansson, MiSalud began by providing users who downloaded the app with consultations with Mexican doctors. However, individuals who were eager to locate the app, download it, and enroll in the program weren’t the ones who needed it the most in the end, so the company changed its strategy in 2023 to provide its service to businesses as an employee perk. (People are still able to use it.)
According to Johansson, the company has roughly a dozen other clients in addition to Taylor Farms, including the city of Lynwood in California. According to MiSalud, almost 40% of the workers its platform serves claim that they would have either disregarded their health issues or waited until they could visit a doctor in Mexico if it weren’t for the app.
Paul Brown, a health economics professor at UC-Merced who participated in the university’s farmworker health study, cautioned that telemedicine consultations are insufficient replacements for in-person treatment from a specialist or primary care physician. He did, however, add that it’s beneficial to the degree that these programs can help connect people to more conventional care.
According to Brown, if laws were modified to make it easier for Mexican physicians to treat patients in the United States, MiSalud’s strategy might work better. Although there is still a lack of cross-border telemedicine, even between states, a program started in California in 2002 permits Mexican physicians to visit the Salinas Valley and other regions with a large Latino population to treat patients.
Employees at Taylor Farms, however, feel the app has been useful. Coworkers praised MiSalud, so Rosa Rosita Flores, a line supervisor for the company’s retail operations, said she chose to give it a try.
She scheduled a meeting on the app to talk about the significance of keeping an eye on her blood pressure and blood sugar levels after attending a recent company health fair that was partially funded by MiSalud. In Spanish, she said, “The app is very easy to use.” The health coaches texted her after she had to end a video conference because her daughter was ill.
Cross-border medicine proponents claim that the method aids in overcoming linguistic and cultural obstacles in medical care. Language hurdles frequently deter people from seeking care, as evidenced by the fact that over half of all U.S. immigrants—roughly two-thirds of whom are native Spanish speakers—have limited English competence.
For instance, MiSalud health coach Alfredo Alvarez, a qualified Mexican physician, mentioned the belief in the evil eye, or “el mal de ojo,” which holds that someone’s jealous or envious look can hurt someone, especially a kid. The idea may be dismissed by an American physician, but he understands.
In Mexico, he said, this isn’t unusual. It’s a traditional medicinal belief.
Alvarez does not advocate for hissocios, or members, to diagnose and treat mal de ojo by forcing the child to wear a specific bracelet or passing an egg over them. Instead, he guides them toward evidence-based medicine while acknowledging traditional traditions.
Coaches at MiSalud may also attempt to dispel stereotypes. For instance, the belief that men don’t visit doctors can be interpreted as a Mexican respect for macho, according to Alvarez. According to him, women may prioritize the requirements of other family members over their own health.
Additionally, coaches work to dispel the stigma associated with obtaining mental health care. A lot of oursocioshave been extremely uncomfortable with or wary of mental health professionals, said Rub n Benavides Crespo, a MiSalud mental health coach who is a licensed psychologist in Mexico.
The app tries to break through by making it easy to book counseling appointments and asking questions such as whether someone has trouble sleeping, rather than invoking more worrisome or potentially stigmatizing terms like anxiety or depression.
MiSalud representatives say the app saw a 50% increase in requests for mental health support following the November presidential election. However, bereavement counseling is a more often requested service, frequently when a loved one passes away.
According to Benavides, loss necessitates adaptation.
For Sam Chaidez, director of operations for a Taylor Farms location in Gonzales, MiSalud is a welcome addition for weight management. The son of fieldworkers, Chaidez graduated from UC-Davis and returned to the Salinas Valley to work for the company in 2007.
In 2019, Chaidez, a new parent at the time, began to understand his risk for diabetes and other health problems because of Taylor Farms wellness program. Through diet and exercise and, more recently, coaching by MiSalud, Chaidez has shed 150 pounds.
Chaidez encourages co-workers to walk with him at lunch, and he credits MiSalud coaches for helping him keep the weight off and stay healthy. It s been a great help, he said.
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