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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Thu Quach, MPH, Northern California Cancer Center, 2001 Center Street, 7th Floor, Berkeley, CA 94706, (415)244-6451, tquach@nccc.org and Julia Liou, MPH, Planning and Development Manager, Asian Health Services, 818 Webster Street, Oakland, CA 94607.

For many working Asian Pacific American women, the struggle for human rights occurs in the workplace where they face prolonged exposures to chemicals and other health hazards due to poor work conditions. A significant number of these women are nail salon workers, 95% who are female and 80% who in California are of Vietnamese descent. Typically working long hours, these women interact with hazardous occupational chemicals present in products on a daily basis, which can increase their risks for adverse reproductive health impacts, including cancer and unhealthy birth outcomes. With the lack of an independent entity that can regulate cosmetic manufacturers, manufacturers can freely place known carcinogenic chemicals into their products, thereby impinging on a nail salon worker's as well as a consumer's right to know. Given their occupational exposures, immigration history, cultural practices and barriers to health access, the health/safety of nail salon workers is of great concern due to their complex health risk profile.

This session's purpose is two-fold: 1) to describe the developing research on the health status of Vietnamese workers exposed to potentially hazardous workplace chemicals, and 2) to discuss recent California public policy efforts driven by community advocates for the health and protection of these immigrant workers, even in the absence of “solid scientific evidence” linking occupational exposures to adverse health. The latter will focus on the success of the Safe Cosmetics bill and the on-going collaborative efforts to continue the reproductive justice and human rights agenda for women working in the cosmetology industry.

Learning Objectives:

• Give a quick overview of the cosmetology industry, specifically the nail salon sector
• Characterize the workforce and their working environments
• Describe some of the reproductive justice and human rights issues for this workforce
• Discuss the different ways to address some of the workers’ needs and some of the current efforts
• Discuss how a reproductive justice and human rights framework was used to push for the Safe Cosmetics Bill in California.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation