Craig Slatin, ScD, MPH¹, Jamie Tessler, MPH², The PHASE in Healthcare Project³, Michael O'Sullivan, DPH¹, Laura Punnett, ScD², and Jody Lally, MSW⁴. (1) School of Health and Environment, Dept. of Health and Clinical Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 3 Solomont Way, Suite 4, Lowell, MA 01854, (2) Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Kitson 200, One University Avenue, Lowell, MA 01854, 617-971-9603, jtessler@igc.org, (3) University of Massachusetts Lowell, 1 University Ave., Lowell, MA 01854, (4) Center for Public Health Research and Health Promotion, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 1 University Avenue, Lowell, MA 01854

The healthcare industry provides a unique setting for examining the relationship between socio-economic position and health outcomes. It is a major sector of the U.S. economy and the industry’s workforce encompasses a wide-range of occupations, educational levels, and incomes. Healthcare worker rates of acute injuries, musculoskeletal disorders, and other work-related adverse health outcomes have rapidly increased over the past two decades. This corresponds with a period of neoliberal restructuring of the healthcare sector resulting in mergers, downsizing, reorganizing of professional patient care delivery, and the resultant impacts on work life quality and patient safety. Our project, Promoting Healthy and Safe Employment (PHASE) in Healthcare, is examining the work environment as a primary mediator of the effect of socio-economic position on population health. PHASE is conducting interdisciplinary research in participating community hospitals and nursing homes. We are also conducting focus groups with members of healthcare worker unions.

We describe the multiple challenges and barriers to conducting this research: challenges in conducting occupational research with limited access to workers; employer concerns regarding union organizing; employer withdrawals due to the strains of healthcare crisis; employee concerns regarding confidentiality; participant recruitment limited by time constraints and work/family conflicts, among others. While significant state and federal funding supports study to improve patient safety and successful employee retention measures, the fundamental and underlying issue of working conditions and the occupational health of healthcare workers has received little attention nor intervention from government and industry.

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