UC Davis epidemiologist Marc Schenker, a leading authority on occupational and environmental diseases and respiratory illness, has received a research grant for more than $500,000 from the California Endowment to study the health of Mexican hired farm workers and their families. Called MICASA (Mexican Immigration to California: Agricultural Safety and Acculturation), the study aims to better understand and reduce health risks and related illnesses in the hired farm-worker population. Researchers are collecting information on demographics, smoking and other health-related behaviors, acculturation and occupational and environmental risk factors on 400 workers and their families.