 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Roona Ray, BA, Biology and Women's Studies, Harvard University, 7 West Street, Sharon, MA 02067, 781-784-7627, rray@post.harvard.edu
Focused, critical research on the occupational health (OH) of women workers, especially immigrants and women of color, has historically been neglected, despite dramatic 20th century changes to the status of women and construction of gender and a shift to a service-based economy. The brief and intermittent history of women's occupational health illustrates that women workers have been actively and systematically excluded from OH science. In order to address the omission of women, immigrants, and minority workers from OH scholarship, non-traditional, explicitly feminist epidemiological methods, which require researchers to respond to current trends in labor and gender, must be employed. Use of community-based, participatory action research (PAR) methods provides one such alternative to traditional methods. A descriptive study was conducted using PAR methods with a group of immigrant Latina janitors, in collaboration with two community-based organizations and a student activist-researcher. OH issues hypothesized to affect these workers, their families, and their communities were: 1) adverse mental health conditions associated with work-related stress and 2) adverse health effects of economic working conditions. However, results illustrated that physical working conditions continue to pose significant health problems: namely, strength of chemical fumes and quality and effectiveness of health and safety trainings were identified as pressing issues, and action steps were collectively designed to address them. The hypothesized OH issues were not adequately addressed through the PAR method, demonstrating its possible shortcomings. The PAR method is critiqued-but not discarded-and recommendations are made for refining the technique in an activist and community-based setting to address issues of mental health and health outcomes related to economic working conditions.
Learning Objectives:
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.