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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Michele Ochsner, PhD, Occupational Training and Education Consortium, Rutgers University, Labor Education Center, 50 Labor Center Way, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, 732-932-3780, ochsner@smlr.rutgers.edu, Richard Cunningham, BA, New Labor, 103 Bayard St. - 2nd Floor, New Brunswick, NC 08901, and Elizabeth Marshall, PhD, Department of Epidemiology, UMDNJ School of Public Health, 683 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, NC 08854.

As part of the Center to Protect Worker's Rights NIOSH Research Consortium, Rutgers OTEC is partnering with New Labor, a non-profit membership organization of Latino immigrant workers, and working with the Laborers International Union Health and Safety Fund, to understand the health and safety needs of Latino day laborers in construction and develop and evaluate an innovative Spanish language health and safety education and training program. To gain access to this hard-to-reach population, the research team is collaborating with New Labor members who have been trained to conduct outreach at local day labor sites, lead focus groups and administer surveys. The presentation will include: 1) a brief review of the mortality and injury data on immigrant day laborers in construction; 2) an overview of the theory and practice of community participatory research; 3) a discussion of the process of working with immigrant peer researchers in developing instruments, baseline data collection and curriculum development; 4) highlight key findings about the health and safety needs of day laborers from focus groups, interviews and surveys; and 5) discuss challenges and lessons learned during the first two years of this three year project.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant in this (learner) in this session will be able to

• Describe the factors which contribute to higher rates of injuries among Latino day laborers in construction.
• Understand the challenges of mounting an intervention to reduce injuries with this hard to reach population.
• Articulate the advantages of working with representatives of the target population in designing and conducting intervention-based research.
• Analyze the project's methodologies and strategies in the context of community based participatory research principles and practice.
• Obtain insights about the health and safety related attitudes, experiences, and work practices of day laborers in our sample.

Keywords: Participatory Action Research, Construction Injuries

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation