In the last two decades, nail salons have cropped up on nearly every major street in the nation, with California currently home to the largest number of shops and licensed nail technicians. Nail salon workers routinely handle cosmetic products that contain a multitude of hazardous compounds including carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and respiratory irritants. However, available training materials lack comprehensive information about safety precautions that salons can take to minimize chemical exposures; including recommendations for less-toxic products, improved ventilation, safe handling of toxic compounds, personal protective equipment and administrative controls (e.g., break time outside the salons). Furthermore, despite the fact that Vietnamese immigrants dominate the California workforce, training materials are not translated to fit their needs. Consequently, nail salon workers needlessly suffer a number of health problems. We propose to conduct an innovative owner-to-worker education intervention using Vietnamese American nail salon owners to train their workers in ways to reduce workplace chemical exposures. Using a group-randomized, controlled trial design in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, California, we will conduct baseline and follow-up surveys and personal air sampling measurements to evaluate changes in worker knowledge, behavior, salon environment, measured exposures and health effects between baseline and follow- up. The primary hypothesis is that there will be a significantly greater reduction in measured levels of air contaminants among workers in the intervention group than in the comparison group.
The specific aims are to: 1) Develop workplace chemical exposure reduction (WCER) education materials and survey instruments which are culturally and linguistically appropriate to Vietnamese American nail salon workers and owners. 2) Implement an owner-to-worker intervention to administer the WCER education materials. 3) Evaluate the effectiveness of the owner-to-worker WCER intervention for: a) increasing worker knowledge of WCER; b) modifying behavioral and environmental factors that promote WCER; c) reducing measured personal levels of air contaminants (e.g., total hydrocarbons, toluene, formaldehyde and methyl methacrylate) in workers; and d) reducing work-related health problems. 4) Evaluate the balance of resources, control and responsibilities of the scientific and community partners in this community-based participatory research process. The proposed intervention study is expected to have significant public health impact by reducing workplace chemical exposures in a large, rapidly-growing and predominantly immigrant workforce that is disproportionately exposed, with a goal to ultimately reduce health disparities.
Reducing Chemical Exposures in Nail Salons Using an Owner-to-Worker Intervention Project Narrative The proposed study builds on previous developmental community-based participatory research projects focused on the recently high profile concerns of health risks from chemical exposures in the burgeoning nail salon industry, an industry dominated in California by Vietnamese immigrant workers. We propose to conduct an owner-to-worker education intervention using Vietnamese American nail salon owners to train their workers on how to reduce workplace chemical exposures, and will evaluate changes in worker knowledge, behavior, salon environment, and exposure and health effects using baseline and follow-up surveys as well as personal air sampling measurements. The intervention is expected to have significant public health impact by reducing workplace exposures in a large, predominantly immigrant workforce that is disproportionately exposed, and thus, ultimately designed to reduce health disparities.
| Quach, Thu; Varshavsky, Julia; Von Behren, Julie et al. (2013) Reducing chemical exposures in nail salons through owner and worker trainings: an exploratory intervention study. Am J Ind Med 56:806-17 |
