Work experiences of Latino building cleaners: An exploratory study

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Am J Ind Med
• Personal Author:
  Eggerth, Donald E. ; Ortiz, Bermang ; Keller, Brenna M. ; Flynn, Michael A.
• Description:
  Background
  
  There are roughly 3.8 million cleaning workers in the United States. The cleaning workforce is largely composed of women, immigrants, and ethnic minorities who receive low wages and have low education levels. They are exposed to physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial hazards.
  
  Methods
  
  Qualitative methodology was used to investigate how Latino immigrants experience work as building cleaners. A grounded theory coding approach was used to analyze focus group data from 77 participants.
  
  Results
  
  Three major themes were identified: economic vulnerability, psychosocial stressors, and health and safety effects. Although workers are aware of the safety hazards associated with their jobs, they believe their immigration status limits employment opportunities leading them to accept poor working conditions. They work through injuries and cope psychologically through minimizing negative health impacts and normalizing work-related injuries and illnesses.
  
  Conclusions
  
  The findings suggest that interventions for these workers should recognize the hostile organizational and psychosocial contexts within which immigrants often work.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Article Building Cleaners Coping Immigrants Latino Qualitative
• Source:
  Am J Ind Med. 62(7):600-608
• Pubmed ID:
  31104342
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC7197437
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  62
• Issue:
  7
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:1021c30ffc9194ce875eab77c0e339142379bc6cdb45e475a16660b43565855d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/90690/cdc_90690_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 81.35 KB ]