Health Promotion and Occupational Risk Reduction among Informal Garment Workers: Participatory Action Research

Abstract

Informal garment workers are disadvantaged group, lacking the opportunity of learning in safety at work including unaccessibility to occupational health and safety services. This participatory action research aimed to develop and evaluate a model of health promotion and occupational risk reduction among informal garment workers. The research participants included 11 leaders of informal garment workers, a professional nurse responsible for worker health, and 78 informal garment workers.  The study involved three main phases: 1) raising awareness leading to problem solving at work; 2) collaboratively planning to solve problems for safety work; and 3) implementing and evaluating.  Data collection was performed using an interview form of working behaviors which had been confirmed its quality, muscle flexibility assessment, visual analogue scale, and focus group discussions.  Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and repeated measures analysis of variance (rANOVA) while qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis.

The main findings reflected the model of health promotion and occupational risk reduction consisted of 1) an interactive building capacity training for garment worker leaders regarding risk communication skills, and muscle strengthening; and 2) media development concerning occupational risk assessment, principle of safety work for garment workers, and muscle strengthening.  An evaluation was performed at the 2^nd and 3^rd months upon the implementation indicated that informal garment workers modified their working behaviors, the median scores of safe work behavior before and after an intervention differed significantly (p<.001); muscle flexibility improved significantly while muscle pain level decreased significantly (p<.001).

         The results of this study indicate that to reduce risk and enhance safe work behaviors, it requires a concretely collaborative effort among health services and academic institutions, including worker leaders.  Such collaborative efforts create a sense of ‘ownership’ and ‘partnership’ of working together.  Building capacity among garment worker leaders through empowerment process to solve occupational health problems based on problem solving principle ‘by workers’ and ‘for workers’ is also crucial.