Facebook-f Twitter Jki-instagram-1-light
Facebook-f Twitter Jki-instagram-1-light
Scroll
Scroll

The science of recovering brain and lung health in farming communities.

Exposure Medicine (or occupational health) detects, and treats conditions caused by work. We built scalable screening tools to extend it to farming families.
We apply behavioral science to ensure they stick to screening and health coverage.

Exposure Medicine ↓
Behavioral Science↓
PennC-1536x597-1.png
5edae4ce788fe306fad761294e34a1f8 (2)
177481204574178406
Section 1: What is Exposure Medicine?
What is Exposure Medicine?​

Every job has health risks. Occupational health prevents, detects, and treats conditions caused by work. Office workers get it. Factory workers get it. 860 million farmers and their kids don’t.


We call it “exposure medicine” to avoid the confusion and honor the equity they’re now getting.

Section 2

Understanding exposure-linked diseases

Pesticides don’t just poison farmers—they steal their kids’ futures first. Exposures damage developing brains, turning sharp children into struggling students. The learning loss is invisible. The cause is never diagnosed.

By the time a farmer is diagnosed with occupational cancer or kidney failure, their children have already suffered years of cognitive harm and lost potential.

Corporate employees who process crops get occupational care. Farmers who grow the crops don’t. Children fail in school. Parents die early. No one helps kids unleash their potential. 

Section 3: Visual
Without exposure medicine
With exposure medicine
Exposure
Child struggles in school
Parent develops symptoms
Child sent to work
Late diagnosis
Death
Exposure
Teacher notices child's decline
Family screened
Early treatment
Child learns, parent lives
Section 4: Behavioral Science
The Behavioral Challenge of Program Adoption and Adherence.

860 million rural families struggle to stick to programs. 66% of Ghanaians can afford health insurance, but remain unenrolled. Money isn’t the problem. 

And its not because they don’t care. Rather, availability doesn’t automatically equal utilization.

Stress, forgetfulness, and daily hassles widen the gap between intention and action. Programs fail. Families die. Money disappears.

 
Section 5
We apply Behavioral Science, designed for the communal settings where farmers live:
Social Neuroscience
Loss Aversion
Endowment Effect
Social Accountability
Hybrid Incentives
Social Neuroscience Social Neuroscience

Social Neuroscience

Relationships Are the Strongest Motivator

People work harder for someone they love than for money — especially in communal cultures where family and social bonds are the primary motivator.

Insel, 2003; Medvedev et al., 2024
Loss Aversion Loss Aversion

Loss Aversion

Framing Rewards as Something to Keep, Not Earn

The fear of losing something you already have is twice as motivating as the excitement of gaining something new.

Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; Patel et al., 2016b
Endowment Effect Endowment Effect

Endowment Effect

Rewards Begin in Escrow, Not at Zero

Once something feels like yours, you fight harder to keep it than you ever would have to earn it.

Thaler, 1980
Social Accountability Social Accountability

Social Accountability

Being Seen as a Good Parent in the Community

When your neighbors can see whether you showed up for your family, their perception becomes a powerful motivator in itself.

Hybrid Incentives Hybrid Incentives

Hybrid Incentives

Rewarding Both the Individual and Their Loved One

Rewarding only the individual or only the group doesn't work — but rewarding both simultaneously, with something that means more than cash, does.

Patel et al., 2016a; Thirumurthy, Asch & Volpp, 2019
Section 6: School Based Care
Using school-based care systems

Nothing drives behavior faster than trust. And communities deeply trust their local schools.

Schools see families regularly—children daily, parents monthly. Teachers notice when a sharp child becomes slow. We train them to detect early signs of exposure harm, connects families to care, and track protocol adherence.

Section 7: See the evidence
Rauh et al. (2011), Environmental Health Perspectives
”
Prenatal chlorpyrifos exposure was linked to lower IQ and working memory deficits at age 7.
Bouchard et al. (2011), Environmental Health Perspectives
”
Organophosphate metabolites in pregnant women were associated with a 7-point IQ deficit in children.
Johnson et al. (2019), New England Journal of Medicine
”
Chronic kidney disease of unknown cause in agricultural communities is strongly linked to heat stress and dehydration.
Wesseling et al. (2020), Pan American Journal of Public Health
”
Mesoamerican nephropathy is primarily driven by occupational heat stress in sugarcane workers.
Fathallah (2010), Journal of Agromedicine
”
Farming ranks among the highest-risk occupations for musculoskeletal disorders, and stooped labor causes 3× higher low back injury rates.
Osborne et al. (2012), American Journal of Industrial Medicine
”
A systematic review found that farmers have significantly elevated rates of osteoarthritis in the hips, knees, and spine compared with non-farmers.
Grimm (2014), Journal of Health Economics
”
Parental health shocks, especially maternal illness, reduce child school enrollment by 7 percentage points.
ILO (2020), Global Estimates of Child Labour
”
Agriculture accounts for 70% of child labor, and sick parents are a primary driver of children entering hazardous work.
Schenker et al. (2009), American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
”
An autopsy study found 32% of farmworkers had pneumoconiosis versus 8% of non-farmworkers.
Blair & Freeman (2009), Journal of Agromedicine
”
Agricultural Health Study data showed pesticide applicators face elevated cancer risks despite lower smoking rates.
IARC (2017), Monograph 112
”
Glyphosate was classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” based on agricultural exposure studies.
Butler-Dawson et al. (2016), Neurotoxicology
”
Children of agricultural workers showed deficits in learning potential compared with non-agricultural peers.
Dobbins et al. (2022), Neurotoxicology and Teratology
”
Farmworker children showed lower cognitive scores on WISC-V verbal and visual-spatial indices.
Curl et al. (2015), Environmental Health Perspectives
”
Organophosphate exposure was associated with cognitive deficits persisting from childhood into adolescence.
Kahneman & Tversky (1979), Econometrica
”
Losses are psychologically about twice as powerful as equivalent gains, forming the empirical basis for loss-framed incentive design.
Patel, Asch, Volpp et al. (2016), Annals of Internal Medicine
”
In a 7,000-person randomized trial, loss-framed health incentives outperformed equivalent gain-framed incentives in sustaining behavior change.
Thirumurthy, Asch & Volpp (2019), JAMA
”
Financial incentives alone produce limited sustained behavior change after removal; identity-linked and social rewards are needed for effects that persist beyond a single incentive cycle.
Section 7
See the evidence.
Children shouldn't lose their futures.
Parents should live to steward them.
Send a Kit. Unleash Genius