Using community‐based participatory research to design and initiate a study on immigrant worker health and safety in San Francisco's Chinatown restaurants

Abstract

CBPR holds promise for both studying worker health and safety among immigrant Chinese restaurant workers and developing culturally appropriate research tools. A new observational checklist also has potential for restaurant-level data collection on worker health and safety conditions.

Studying and Addressing Urban Immigrant Restaurant Worker Health and Safety in San Francisco’s Chinatown District: A CBPR Case Study

“…Although a detailed presentation of the study findings is beyond the scope of this paper and is available elsewhere, 3,14,[25][26][27] we highlight here those of most relevance to workers, particularly in relation to their primary concerns, wage theft, and other basic worker rights violations. Survey results (n0405) indicated that almost 60 % of participants had experienced wage theft in at least one of its forms.…”

“…These experiences contributed to the health department's examination of internal practices and the subsequent exploration of withholding health permits to restaurants found to be in violation of minimum wage laws and requiring verification of workers' compensation insurance when issuing business operating licenses. 29 University partners led other publication efforts, 14,25,27,30 and all partners presented on the project at local, national, and international professional and community meetings. It was, however, the community partners-CPA and the worker partners-who led the dissemination of survey and other study findings to the wider community and public and used the findings in support of the central action component of the study.…”

“…6 Traditional "outside expert-driven" research approaches also frequently have proven ill-suited to work with urban immigrant populations, whose members may be distrustful of research and fearful of disclosing information or participating in interventions due to immigration status, fear of retaliation, or earlier life experiences. 1,4,6,14 In this article, we highlight the value that may be added to urban immigrant health research when CBPR is utilized. We then describe the Chinatown Restaurant Worker Health and Safety Study, an ecologic CBPR project undertaken in San Francisco and use it to illustrate each of CBPR's potential benefits.…”

Wage Theft as a Neglected Public Health Problem: An Overview and Case Study From San Francisco’s Chinatown District

“…28 An orientation to research, rather than a research method, CBPR is "systematic investigation, with the collaboration of those affected by the issue, for the purposes of education and action or effecting change." 29(p2) The topic of wage theft quickly emerged from worker and community partners as the single most important issue on which they wanted to collect data.…”

Promoting Health and Safety in San Francisco's Chinatown Restaurants: Findings and Lessons Learned from a Pilot Observational Checklist

“…The research aims of this project were to (1) assess labor law compliance and workplace hazards in restaurants in one San Francisco, California, neighborhood; (2) assess the feasibility of using an observational checklist to routinely monitor workplace conditions in the course of regulatory inspections; and (3) assess the relationship between observed workplace hazards and food safety scores. Consistent with community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles of generating collective understanding and action to address a priority social problem, [18][19][20] this article describes the process of creating and applying the checklist and the findings from this application. We discuss lessons learned regarding the utility of the checklist as a data-collection instrument and the feasibility of incorporating the checklist into routine environmental inspections.…”