Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #107284

Cora Roelofs, ScD¹, Huong Nguyen, MPH², Lenore Azaroff, ScD¹, and Tam Doan, MCP³. (1) Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 1 University Ave., Kitson 200H, Lowell, MA 01854, 978 934 4396, Cora_Roelofs@uml.edu, (2) VIET Aid, 42 Charles St., Dorchester, MA 02122, (3) New Ecology Inc., 130 Bishop Allen Drive, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139

Nail salons are everywhere, yet little is known about the nail salon work environment or nail salon work-related health effects. In Massachusetts, as in many other parts of the country, nail technicians are primarily Vietnamese immigrants and refugees. This project was initiated by university-based researchers and a Vietnamese community development corporation, both concerned about potential hazardous occupational exposures and work-related health issues in the Boston-area Vietnamese community. A community-university collaborative approach was used to develop the survey and recruit participants. Seventy-two nail techs responded to the survey and reported on their general and work-related health and work environment. We will discuss results from these survey data and methodological issues related to a community-based approach for occupational health surveys.

Learning Objectives:

• list nail salon work characteristics, hazards and health effects; describe a community-based approach to gathering information from an immigrant worker population; list selected outcomes from the survey

Keywords: Occupational Health, Asian Americans

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation