Impacts of Technological Change: Work-Related Disparities

we are very pleased to be able to offer continuing education for a variety of professional groups as seen at the top of the slide free continuing education credits are available for this presentation through cdc's training and continuing education online system detailed instructions on cdc's ceus are available at the website shown on the screen that website is tceols.cdc.gov please note that the live activity number listed on the screen is only valid for those watching today's live webinar you will need the course access code to receive credit the archived activity number shown on the screen is to be used only by those who who view the webinar recording later or attempt to access ceus after july 8th 2022 we are recording today's webinar and it will be posted on the cdc youtube channel within a month for those who cannot join us today now it is my pleasure to introduce dr sarah felkner niosh's associate director for research integration thank you nicole um on behalf of niosh i'd like to welcome everyone to our summer expanding research partnerships webinar exploring how technological change is impacting work and well-being from different perspectives we're pleased to co-sponsor this webinar today with the niosh diversity equity and inclusion office today we have an exciting panel of partners from occupational safety and health communities to consider the impacts of technological change with the focus on health disparities and it is my pleasure to introduce our distinguished panel i'll briefly introduce all speakers now so we can move more quickly between presentations please see the niosh expanding research partnerships webpage for their full biographies our first speaker today will be dr rashawn roberts from niosh rashaan is the associate director for diversity and inclusion and the director of the niosh diversity equity and inclusion office established in 2021 prior to assuming these roles she was a researcher and scientific leader in niosh's division of applied research and technology there she led research and dissemination projects covering a wide variety of content areas including workplace discrimination minority health and health disparities aging and women's health our second speaker today is eric clinton from unite here local 362. eric is president of unite here local 362 which represents 10 000 hospitality workers in central florida and south carolina unite here is a national labor organization representing 300 000 hotel gaming food service and textile workers across north america including the attractions and custodial cast members at walt disney world and food service workers in airports and industrial kitchens eric is also president of the central florida afl-cio the umbrella group of organized labor which represents 70 000 union members from over 50 local unions in the central florida area and our third speaker today is dr maria espinola maria is the ceo of the institute for health equity and innovation in cincinnati ohio she has over 12 years of experience providing vision leadership and strategic planning for the development and implementation of health equity initiatives in multi-faceted organizations she's been a consultant for niosh and has also served on the ohio commission on minority health medical expert panel the university of cincinnati presidents diversity council and the health policy institute of ohio's board of directors and now we're ready to begin our webinar each speaker will have approximately 20 minutes followed by a question and answer session after all presentations have concluded please put your questions in the chat box at any time during the webinar and now without further delay i'd like to invite rashawn roberts to our virtual podium rashawn great thank you and good afternoon everyone first of all i'd like to thank dr sarah felkner for the introduction and dr felter and the niosh office of research integration for coordinating today's session and for partnering with the niosh diversity equity and inclusion office to sponsor it i'm also very grateful and honored to share the virtual stage with my esteemed co-panelists today some of the great strides we've seen in technological innovation have without a doubt opened up many new possibilities and avenues through which we can potentially protect the safety health and well-being of the u.s labor force which is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse given that there are always two sides to every coin however i will be raising a few things to consider as even more possibilities for using technology to address occupational safety and health are discovered and what it might mean for racial and ethnic disparities and inequities next slide please but before i get started i need to share this disclaimer which is that the findings and conclusions in this presentation have not been formally disseminated by the national institute for occupational safety and health and should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy next slide please so with that out of the way this is a brief outline of my presentation i will review the racial and ethnic composition of the general u.s population and labor force present patterns of employment by race and ethnicity describe some documented occupational disparities and inequities in safety and health and raise some considerations in using technology to address them and occupational safety and health in general next so this slide describes where the u.s

currently stands with respect to its racial and ethnic makeup data from the 2020 u.s census indicate that about 62 percent of the population identifies themselves as non-hispanic white the largest ethnic group are those who self-identify as hispanic comprising 19 percent of the population further non-hispanic blacks comprise 12 percent asian americans comprise 6 percent and american indians and alaska natives comprise 1 percent of the population next as you know the u.s is expected to become even more diverse in the coming decades and here are a few factors that will influence that increase in diversity there are and will be growing numbers of americans who identify as multiracial and they are expected to comprise a greater share of the population by the year 2045. other factors are that the hispanic share of the population will continue to grow over time and asian americans are the fastest growing racial and ethnic minority group next to expand briefly on this final point these are data on the growth of the asian american population the first figure here illustrates that between the years of 2000 and 2010 the percent of asian immigrants arriving to the u.s grew steadily surpassing the arrival of immigrants of hispanic origin around the year 2009 the second figure here illustrates the percentage change in the representation of racial and ethnic groups and the population between the years 2000 and 2019 with the greatest percentage change belonging to asian americans at 81 so given this by 2060 the asian-american population in the u.s is expected to

exceed about 35 million people next so with the expected growth of the asian american population and other racial and ethnic minority groups blacks asians hispanics and other groups are expected to collectively comprise over 50 percent of the population by the year 2050. what this means in the realm of public health is that as the country undergoes this transition the health and safety statistics of the nation will be increasingly influenced by the statistics of racial and ethnic minority groups next please and this is a concern because it is well documented that minorities in the u.s are affected by racial and ethnic health disparities and inequities according to the cdc the term health disparities refers to preventable differences in the burden of disease injury violence or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by populations that have been socially economically geographically and environmentally disadvantaged inequities are defined by cdc as particular types of health disparities that stem in particular from unfair or unjust systems policies and practices and limit access to the opportunities and resources needed to live the healthiest life possible racism for example is a system or structure that affords less power and distributes fewer opportunities and limits access to health promoting and other resources to historically marginalized racial or ethnic groups and therefore contributes in significant ways to health inequities health disparities and inequities negatively impact everyone they lead to worsened outcomes not for just for the groups of people they directly affect but also for those with more power and resources for example health disparities and inequities raise the cost of health care for everyone and it diminishes wealth collective well-being in a myriad of ways so it's really incumbent upon those of us who work in public health to do what we can to promote health equity which is defined by the cdc as a state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health next please to promote health equity across races and ethnicities and occupational safety and health per se it's really important to understand the dynamics of the labor force including its current racial and ethnic makeup as of 2020 people of hispanic ethnicity who may be of any race make up 18 of the total labor force by detailed ethnicity you can see here that the majority of hispanics in the labor force self-identify as mexican um in terms of racial background almost nine in ten hispanics and labor force self-identify as white next slide please given this hispanic and non-hispanic whites together make up the majority of the labor force in terms of race at 77 according to the bureau of labor statistics or bls data hispanic and non-hispanic blacks and asians constitute an additional 13 and 6 respectively native hawaiian and other pacific islanders account for less than half a percent of the labor force and american indians and alaska natives make up one percent and people of two or more races make up two percent of the current labor force next slide please rates of injury illness and mortality are influenced in part by the sectors and occupations in which people have the economic opportunities to be employed most evidence suggests that members of minority populations face higher workplace injury risks compared to whites because of patterns of employment by race and hispanic ethnicity as shown on this slide to summarize relative to whites and asians hispanics and blacks are more likely to work in the production transportation and material moving occupations and in the service occupations and are less likely to work in the management and professional occupations relative to all other racial and ethnic groups hispanics are more likely to work in the natural resources construction and maintenance occupations next slide please other bls data indicates that indicate that hispanics are substantially over represented as painters and paper hangers maids and housekeeping cleaners and construction laborers blacks are over represented as home health aides transit and inner city bus drivers nursing assistants corrections officers and jailers and security guards and gaming surveillance officers asians are over represented as manicurist and pedicurist software developers computer programs programmers and financial and investment analysts and finally whites are over represented as farmers ranchers and other agricultural managers construction managers and wholesale and manufacturing cells representatives next slide so now that we've reviewed these patterns let's turn to exploring racial and ethnic differences in occupational safety and health a recently published study used bls injury data along with national survey data to test for differences between members of minority groups and non-hispanic white workers in the risk of workplace injury which are defined or is defined in the study is injuries in the workplace that cost the employee at least one lost work day the study found systematic disparities across racial and ethnic groups and the risk of workplace injuries if you look to the last column in the chart non-hispanic black workers and foreign-born hispanic workers worked in jobs with the highest injury risk on average even after adjustments for education and sex these elevated levels of workplace injury risk led to a significant increase in the prevalence of work-related disabilities for non-hispanic black and foreign-born hispanic workers these findings in general illustrate how blacks and hispanics are positioned in the industries and occupations that expose them to increase risk of injury and disability now in this analysis you will notice that asians were found to have low workplace injury risks compared to other racial and ethnic groups but this is not to suggest that there are not significant occupational safety and health equity concerns for asian americans next for instance their increasing risk for workplace fatality over time is one very important and significant concern released in 2020 this 2015 to 2019 trend data from the vls's annual census of fatal occupational injuries or c4 showed the rate of death from workplace trauma increased by about 2 percent among white workers 28 percent among black workers 20 percent among hispanic workers and a staggering 59 percent among asian american workers which may in part reflect that they may be at disproportionate risk for fatalities due to workplace violence particularly in the retail trade sector and to some extent in the services sector as the asian-american population continues to grow so does the need to understand the distinct societal and economic issues this group faces especially when it comes to worker safety health and well-being next please and beyond the realms of fatality and physical injury more work is needed to understand the potential differential exposure to the psychosocial risk factors in the workplace including and beyond those listed on this slide and to understand the mechanisms through which these factors may help drive health disparities and inequities in the safety health and well-being of asian american and other racial and ethnic minority workers and we obviously need to identify ways to intervene and to reduce disparities and inequities next so that brings us to the use of technology um it's widely understood that technology has great potential for preventing fatalities injuries and improving health and well-being in general through facilitating a greater understanding of occupational safety and health risks and helping to mitigate those risks for example new forms of artificial intelligence or a.i or various ai based technologies are being used to improve occupational safety and health surveillance reduce exposures to various workplace risk factors including harassment and violence and provide early warnings of stress health problems and fatigue information gathered by ai based technologies could also be used by organizations to identify psychosocial risks and to identify where occupational safety and health interventions are needed at the organizational level robots and bedding ai can facilitate greater access to work for some workers and improve the quality of work by handing repetitive tasks to machines and altogether remove workers from hazardous situations next please but like there are benefits to using technology to improve worker safety health and well-being there are drawbacks in that it may also have unintended adverse effects on and may even exacerbate disparities and inequities one of the most obvious concerns is that the automation of tasks will lead to a sense of job instability and ultimately to employment for racial and ethnic groups who might be already very vulnerable to those risks also ai has facilitated the emergence of new forms of monitoring and managing workers based on the collection of large amounts of real-time data data can be collected about workers through mobile devices wearable and or embedded monitoring devices or through other avenues during and outside of working hours in a variety of workplaces as well as outside the workplace all of this of course raises the risk of violating worker privacy workers might feel that their privacy is being invaded which is not good for well-being because that can be a source of anxiety and stress um finally data collected through ai systems may be used to inform management and make automated or semi-automated decisions based on algorithms and this might enable employers not only to set finely tuned performance metrics but to discipline and profile workers and it has been established that algorithm our algorithmic bias and ai systems can take on very forms of discrimination or result in discrimination including racial and ethnic discrimination which obviously would further exacerbate inequities in health safety and well-being next slide please an important way to potentially reduce the adverse effects of technology is through partnerships and the use of engagement approaches with groups that advocate for workers including for their safety health and well-being and through partnering and engaging with diverse workers themselves partners should be engaged to help identify and discuss the benefits and also look at the potential adverse effects of technology in question and how the collection of data should be balanced against the rights of workers to privacy and their safety and health it's important to engage partners in all subsequent stages of the work including technology selection development design implementation and use experimentation can be built into these stages where technologies can be tested so that the unintended adverse effects can be identified and addressed well before technologies are rolled out for official use and transparency with partners should be a major part of engagement um it's important to ensure transparency in collecting and the and using data's that are collected through occupational safety and health technologies next slide please so those are my two cents on this particular topic i will stop there and thank everyone for listening um and my contact information is displayed if you have any questions thank you very much rashaan for that really insightful discussion of health disparities in equities and equity and how innovative technologies can be used to help address racial and ethnic occupational health disparities and now we'd like to invite eric clinton to our virtual podium eric uh hello everyone my name is eric clinton i am the president of unite cure local 362. my local union represents 10 000 plus hospitality workers here in central florida as well as south carolina before i go any further i'd like to thank dr felkor and all of her colleagues at niosh for the invitation to participate and have this opportunity to talk about uh how hospitality workers are impacted with these types of changes i'd also like to thank my fellow panelists for their time and attention on these very important topic the hospitality industry is on a fast track to implement technological changes in the workplace this presentation will review the development and use of some new technologies in this sector and discuss their impact on the well-being of the workforce the presentation will also address strategies employers can implement to mitigate some of the adverse effects of these technologies my union is called unite here we are a international organization that represents hospitality workers in canada the united states and puerto rico we represent hotel workers casino workers theme park workers and food service workers in places like higher education universities airports stadiums convention centers and other industrial locations the majority of united here's members are women they're people of color immigrants and generally english as a second language very important to establish that as we start to look at how technology impacts the hospitality industry the types of technological changes we've seen in the hospitality industry vary widely on your screen you can see robot bartenders or a robot butler in a hotel as well as a cell phone and there are many types of technology uh efforts that have been and that are being implemented in our industry some of those are good and establish a safer workplace like a cell phone for a housekeeper who can hit a panic button if they are in a dangerous situation but there are also uh from our point of view from the union's point of view uh negative technological changes that replace working people that eliminate higher earning jobs uh that create efficiency measures that are unnecessary and that potentially impact how workers feel about their day-to-day jobs some of the disparities in equities hospitality workers face have to do with language capabilities is the technological changes that are being implemented are they being explained in the language that the worker understands are they being written in a language that the worker can read are they being trained in a language that they fully understand second is age the hospitality industry is is really going to struggle over the next period of time with an aging workforce a workforce that does not have a lot of young people coming into it like they used to generationally ago and a large swath of the workforce that is going to be facing retirement soon an elder or older workforce is resistant to some technological changes because of lots of different factors technological changes can also have financial impacts uh on on unite here's membership or the general hospitality worker this can be because a loss of hours if technological change is an efficiency move potentially hours can be reduced or cut therefore the hospitality worker not being able to work as much as a result of that the hospitality worker could lose benefits benefits like health care retirement pay time off many of those benefits are determined by how much you work and you must hit benefit thresholds for eligibility thresholds to be able to receive those and for tipped employees in the hospitality industry efficiency moves can lead to the loss of wages or gratuities many of our members who are serving the general public and customers rely on tips and gratuities to be able to provide for their families and finally a fourth inequity or disparity disparity that could impact our membership would be the lack of job opportunities and or promotions and upward mobility i must spend a little time now talking about a couple of specific examples uh the first example that i want to explore is around theme park custodial work an employer implemented the use of cell phones and gps tracking connected to sensors and trash cans and restrooms to assign work what was the impact the work of this custodial group it's important to note had always been done in two separate parts one part was that of public work public custodial cleaning like changing trash cans and sweeping public streets or wiping down benches things of that nature and a second group of custodial work was done specifically focused on restroom cleaning this employer implemented uh the use of iphones and a uh a system that is that would inform and instruct workers to clean a certain part of their workplace based on sensors in restrooms and sensors and trash cans going off and so instead of an employee having a specific area that they were responsible for and generally cleaning it turned into they could be floating to many different areas and based on their gps coordinates the sensors and the algorithm the worker would be pinged to tell what to do this was an efficiency move there's no question that the employer in this case was trying to reduce hours of labor by making sure that custodial workers were assigned and needed to areas that needed to be cleaned um however the the negative impact was that the workforce felt like they were being watched because of the gps tracking on the cell phone the employees lost ownership of their areas if i'm the normal custodian in this part of the theme park and i'm proud of having that clean a certain way every day and now i'm not in that area every day my sense of pride at work and ownership of my work location has been impacted language capabilities and training of the system became evident that the employer did not translate this information into spanish or haitian curial which are the primary languages that spoke in central florida outside of english in particularly in the hospitality industry and finally there wasn't a common sense approach with this technology used and we'll have i have some recommendations at the end of this but had the union been more involved with the implementation of this project um you know understanding that there are certain parts of a workplace when you're responsible for cleaning especially with the high volume that would happen in the theme park just have to be cleaned all the time no matter what um as a former custodian custodial worker myself the term hot trash can or hot can is is fairly common amongst uh custodial workers and uh what that means is it's a trash can that regardless of how busy the theme park is it needs to be changed on a regular basis because there's just a high level of foot traffic um having sensors in that trash can were literally point lists because um the the employees had to change them before they could even be uh told that they needed to be changed by this uh system so that is one example of how technology has implem uh impacted hospitality workers uh in in our industry uh a second example i'd like to explore is around uh gratuities um you know this this uh image that you see on the screen in front of you is um a bar top menu with a qr code um it says scan me for food and drink menus um this existed pre-pandemic but has very much become like the fad in uh in restaurants in particularly airport restaurants and and somebody could be saying well why do you care um why do you care about qr codes uh in restaurants why do why do employers care employers care because this means that they're able to change the menu in a very nimble way they're also not a having to be forced to print menus on a regular basis basis and there's this un unreal but perceived uh idea that a qr code menu is safer than an actual physical menu so why does the union care why do our members care about the use of qr codes what is the impact well it lessens in a in a hospitality industry where guest interaction customer contact is critical for tipped earners and gratuity earners this limits the amount of interaction that a server or bartender could potentially have explaining the menu talking about their favorite dish or making recommendations it also could limit instant contact when coming into the restaurant the employer could operate with fewer servers because the expectation that a customer will sit down utilize the qr code and order before they ever even speak to a human um is is very real that impacts the amount of servers needed but it also impacts the amount of the gratuities received and and the reason for that is because there's less interaction with uh the server in addition it could also impact alcohol verification um is very important that as a server you're not uh in any way giving alcohol to people who are either overserved or under the age uh and there are also other food safeties like food allergies that a qr code menu and technology while all of its intentions are probably good it is it's not possible to verify a peanut allergy for example when you're taking a customer's orders so uh one question to consider for for everyone is how much of this is about changing the customer behavior for now and how much of this is to change the customer behavior in the future many large food service companies are making millions of dollars in investments billions of dollars in investments around technology as it relates to college campuses in higher education whether that's robot butlers that deliver food and drink to someone's dorm or classroom or even an autonomous cafeteria where there are no human beings working and you as a student or customer would go into the cafeteria grab a pre-purchase sandwich or drink go to a man-less or person-less register and clock out and there's no human being working there these are methods that are being employed in college universities and we believe as an organization that while some of these changes are for the future or for for now than the president many of them are to inoculate a younger generation to the expectation of lesser hospitality service and so finally i'll wrap up with my findings or our union's findings and best practices as it relates to how we mitigate or lessen um the exposure to or the disparity in equity that impacts our members we're not led items we understand that technology is here and that there are good pieces of it we also understand that there are bad pieces of it what we think matters in terms of its impact is working with the union around translation working with the union around the implementation and how employees are trained and that workers are included in the process to determine how these changes are implemented the the members whether it's a housekeeper in a hotel or a theme park custodian they're the ones doing the work each and every day and understand the nuances uh and practical realities of of what it's like to work in those high pressure involved environments my union has negotiated and bargained the labor contracts standards around training in these moments around pay if there's loss of job or severance notice to the unions so that we can prepare and inform our members about the potential changes what type of information the employer must provide to the union when when coming up with these changes and also how advancement opportunities could be dealt with because if if technology does eliminate jobs it is practically is understandable to believe that repair of that technology could become a job and how is that being offered to the current food service worker versus someone else that is my presentation for today i look forward to any questions later on thank you very much thank you eric for that important perspective of organized labor on how technology is really impacting workers in the hospitality sector and now we'd like to invite maria espinola to join us at the virtual podium maria thank you very much dr fagnor for organizing and inviting me thank you dr roberts and eric clinton for your presentations and you touch on very great points and i'm going to expand on some of those points so [Music] so my presentation will specifically focus on the positive impact that technological advances can have on the safety and health of vulnerable workers i will focus specifically on workers with vulnerability to injury and illness is higher due to both hazardous working conditions and exposure to inequities those inequities include poverty race ethnicity and i will also touch on strategies to reduce inequities so due to time constraints i picked two fields to discuss today at the beginning of the presentation so those will be construction in agriculture and then i will speak about strategies that can be used in any field so i am going to talk about wearable sensing technology and i cited this recent review on this issue so wearable sensing technology is becoming extremely popular i think the amount of users will reach or surpass this year 1 billion around the world many people in the audience probably are wearing a watch that they are using to monitor health issues so some researchers have been looking at what how can we use this to improve the safety and health of workers so regarding construction a specific plan and i pick construction because one in five deaths among u.s workers is in the construction industry so i think it's important to highlight what is going on here and what can we do to improve their safety so some worry a wearable sensing technology is being used to help identify how workers are assessing hazard recognition hazards and construction sites so there are different studies on this but generally what they are looking at is eye tracking so it's figuring out what is the visual pattern search that the workers are using when they're entering a site how much time they are spending trying to recognize hazards then how much they focus on specific issues and then how broad is their search so by figuring that by looking at that they can predict how safe that worker will be and they can identify training opportunities for them the wearable sensing technology is also being used as dr roberts mentioned earlier to evaluate fatigue and in this case for these specific devices what they're looking is physiological responses that can tell you when a worker is getting fatigued and in construction specifically this is crucial because we know that if a worker is getting tired he's going he or she is going to have difficulty recognizing dangerous situations remembering tasks and performing adequately so monitor mental health is another issue that dr roberts mentioned that i am very passionate about because i'm also a clinical psychologist i another reason why i paid construction is because construction workers are basically the workers that have the highest suicide rate and about over 80 percent of construction workers are reporting mental health issues so it's a very serious concern in the field and for these type of devices what how these devices are being used in this review that i'm mentioning here is again looking at physiological responses now um there are other there are other uses of technology that can also promote mental health that i will mention later but in this case has to do with a cardiac activity with oxygen consumption so um and then so there are different ways to measure it by using devices that are placed on the risk or place on the head then the other huge issue in the construction field is preventing falls and preventing physical injuries so mental health and back injuries are two leading causes of disability around the world so very interesting research being that and done in this area and the way that they are using wearable sensing technology for this is that they are one they are identifying where the workers are are located whether they are getting near a dangerous area so that's one way of preventing falls another one to prevent injuries is looking at their gate someone entering the gate monitoring their movements and seeing if so this can help people identify whether a worker maybe is abusing alcohol or is having some other issues physical issues or mental concerns that are impairing his ability or her ability to move properly so a huge issue around this area is identifying awkward postures and then so letting the worker know that um that that posture has to be corrected okay so the other field that i that i'm gonna mention is agriculture like i said and this is different use as a different use of technology drones can help in mapping and crop monitoring a computer vision via sensors and machine learning algorithms can process data captured from drones flying over fields using drones reduces the need for farm workers to be venturing to remote locations and robots reduce exposure to pesticides and extreme heat so this is extremely important for for for the workers so here are some numbers of what's going on um there have been so 385 million cases of pesticide poisoning per year reported around the world 10 000 pesticide related fatalities per year also around the world and farmers die of heat related illnesses at a rate that is 20 times greater than the rest of the us civilian work workforce so it's extremely important to figure it out how to increase their safety now they are wearable sensing technologies that can tell us if um if they're being exposed to high temperatures the insurance levels of temperature but for this slide what i focus on is on robots and drones so robots are being used to yeah she's a keeping farm keeping a worker safe but as dr roberts mentioned earlier yes they are they can take um workers jobs they can replace them and i will expand on that later on how to address that and how to make sure that workers find other ways to stay employed and actually make more money so i will come back to this another extremely important issue when it comes to keeping workers safe is training so actually i think it's over 60 of construction related injuries happen within the first year um that the worker is actually in the sides right so a really really important information there to keep in mind right how fundamental crucial training is and as eric mentioned how extremely important it is to translate training materials so in a prior presentation that i gave to naosh i expanded on this so we know that immigrants from latin america are 50 times 50 more likely to die from deadly injuries and some of the reasons for this include that they are not being trained at all so that's one uh another one is that they are trained but poorly and not in the language they speak in the other thing is that they might be trained in spanish but the wars that they are being used in the training are not the words that they personally use so an example that i give is personal um so my father is a civil engineer and he has been in in the u.s for about a year

so before doing my prior presentation to niosh i asked him i showed him a picture of a forklift and i asked him what is this how do you call it and she gave me a word that is the word that we use in argentina right and i asked him if he ever heard of other words that i know mexican mexican workers use and he wouldn't recognize it so despite the fact that he has high education level he lived in latin america his entire life working as an engineer for 40 years he couldn't recognize the world and that's pretty fundamental because of the high level high number of injuries that are caused by forklift okay then there are a lot of great things that are going on when it comes to using technology to improve in trainings simulators are pretty fascinating in my opinion i have i was looking at some where the workers will sit down and really have kind of like the full experience of using this machinery including like the impact or the shaking and um using the brakes it's just just really um like a very very uh intense experience training experience for them very helpful very effective that can be done while keeping them completely safe right in facilities away from from everybody else so that's really exciting and the other thing is like despite the fact that we both mentioned eric and i mentioned the issue of language that a lot of people are still not using technology give us this opportunity like it's not that difficult to actually create trainings that uh in different languages and also engage workers beforehand to ensure that the words that you're using are the ones that they can understand also technology in many cases allow you to allow workers to repeat the training over and over pause it and ask questions go back the next day and consult with others as opposed to a one-person training that cannot be replicated and mobile learning of course extremely helpful in terms of being able to allowing workers to take that information home and access it everywhere then there is also the case that eric mentioned that people might be reluctant to use technology or you know due to age or cultural issues and that is a a really important issue that i think can partly be addressed in in someone in the audience already mentioned this with community health workers and i'll talk about that so community health workers are lay members of the community who connect vulnerable individuals to health information resources and services so they can be extremely helpful when it comes to promoting a number of health issues so using so there there's a lot of research on community health workers working on different issues without technology that that has been in place for many many years then there's another um you know large number of research studies that focus on communicable workers who use mobile technology to pretty much improve the range and quality of services it also can allow them to take on complicated tasks and collect more accurate health data for research so some of the studies that have been published or the areas where these workers have focused on include maternal and child health hiv hypertension sexual and reproductive health diabetes asthma cancer screenings so community health workers integrating them in the model has been shown to be affected by in targeting all these issues these there's all they have also been um engaged in issues about increasing worker safety and i spoke about that in a prior presentation particularly with the use of promotors for the latino community and there is more information about this on the cdc website if you search for community health workers or promoters you will see it but the idea is that they can significantly help improve the communication that exists between the workers and health centers and the other great thing about it is that the community health workers are usually are usually members of the same community so they oftentimes are familiar with the workers already or or they know family members oftentimes they can go to the workers home and talk to family members there so something that um oftentimes happen is that all men are notorious for sometimes not taking care of themselves not going to the doctor as often as they need to and i'm going to talk again out of my father because like he if he didn't have people pushing him to go to a doctor so like so that that would be an example right like sometimes it targeting family members who would strongly encourage the person to to go in and get medical screenings done and everything can be extremely effective and sometimes it's the only thing that works really so so now i'm gonna talk about technology jobs so as everybody knows the number of shops and technology have been increasing significantly and it's so the trends are going up this will continue to increase and too many of these positions are being unfulfilled we don't have enough people to take on to take and do those jobs their wages are very high so the median tech wages are 125 higher than median national wages so a huge difference there very low diversity numbers here so only eight percent of uh tech workers are black and eight percent are hispanics women are also significantly underrepresented in the tech industry so that's why i'm bringing up these type of organizations and i am not personally affiliated with any of them uh but i just would like to highlight some of them as examples of what is out there so there are organizations i have been focusing on increasing the number of black children in technology and i'm i'm very so i'm very passionate about the idea of targeting children early on right so showing them the type of things that they can do in the future so children are already leaning to technology a lot right they're all wanting to use phones and computers so they already are leaning towards technology but these organizations are focusing more in helping them code and teaching them how to code and increase their career opportunities in the future so some organizations are targeting the african-american community other ones are focusing on the latin latino community in both so there are other organizations that are really interesting as well for veterans and spouses for people who are unemployed for refugees one of the organizations mentioned here is it was specifically designed for coal miners and i actually called them just to make sure what they were doing was actually available for people and they are basing kentucky and again i'm not affiliated with any anybody here but it caught my attention and the reason for that they decided to do this my understanding is was the person who worked in the field for about 30 years and then after seeing that the employment in this field fell by 54 between 2005 and to in 2020 and they decide so this person decided to partner with a foundation and develop this program which trains for former coma people in coal mines and others others who qualify to um in robotics so yeah they train them in robotics so that's pretty interesting i think and it has completely so from what i'm understanding is it has completely changed lives and their their career opportunities obviously and then other organizations i call my attention have to do with uh people organizations that specifically focus on prisoners so female prisoners and male prisoners so i personally worked in corrections before several years ago but so um i believe it's extremely important to to create training programs for people who are incarcerated accordingly most of them will go back into the community so so in order to improve their health their their own safety in the safety of everybody in the community i think is key to provide them with proper opportunities to have distinguishes and and a future okay so that was it for my presentation i like to acknowledge kamala nelson who is a research fellow with me and elsa haley who helped me prepare for this presentation and then i like to thank everybody who attended here is my information and you can contact me by email or even schedule an appointment using the website thank you this has been a wonderful panel and what a great group of panelists i want to thank you all for your participation in this second installment of our expanding research partnerships webinar series we hope to see all of you at our next webinar series on wednesday september 14th when we're going to look at the impact of technology on work and well-being through the lens of occupational health systems to ensure you get the latest news about this webinar series please visit the expanding research partnerships webpage to receive email updates and we'll put that web address in the chat box now and now i'll turn it over to nicole to close us out thank you all all right thank you very much to our presenters and our audience for an interesting discussion some reminders as we wrap up today's webinar the link for an online evaluation of today's webinar is available in the chat box we also have the evaluation set to appear in the web browser when we disconnect the webinar lastly tomorrow all attendees will receive a follow-up email with a survey link please take a moment to provide feedback on today's event we use the evaluation feedback to improve our our future webinar offerings this webinar was recorded and will be posted on the cdc youtube channel finally as sarah noted the next webinar in this 2022 expanding research partnership webinar series will be on september 14th more information will be available on the niosh expanding research partnerships website soon thank you and stay safe everyone

2022-06-29 16:00

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