California Labor Laboratory (CALL)

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Project Abstract/Summary – California Labor Laboratory The goal of our Total Worker Health Center of Excellence, the California Labor Laboratory (CALL) is to understand the causes of and prevent or mitigate the health impacts of emergent working conditions. The axes of change in work include the growth of alternative work arrangements and contingent forms of employment, and erosion of traditional working conditions. CALL will emphasize the health impacts on those most vulnerable to the changes, including racial and ethnic minorities; women; immigrants; low wage workers; persons with disabilities; and younger and older workers, especially those with chronic diseases. Covid-19 has made it clear just how vulnerable these groups are to the changes. Concern for their welfare motivates the proposed Center. California not only has the largest population of any state, at just under 40 million, but it is among the most diverse in its racial and ethnic composition. California has also been a trend-setter in work organization, with large proportion of the workforce not being directly hired by the firm for which the work is done. CALL has these specific aims: 1) To describe, through RESEARCH, the prevalence of alternative work arrangements, document the etiological connection between those work arrangements, important sentinel working conditions, and adverse health outcomes, and perform research to uncover the mechanisms that translate work arrangements into poor health; and 2) To mitigate the health impacts of alternative work arrangements through a robust OUTREACH program encompassing the development of an interdisciplinary training program for healthy work based on research from CALL, consulting to workers and employers on best practices, and working with policymakers in regulatory, executive, and legislative branches of government at the State and Federal level to develop legislation to improve the health of work through the POLICY FORUM. CALL is a joint endeavor of two of the premier research universities in the nation, the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) and San Francisco (UCSF), but includes participants from Harvard, UCLA, and the State Department of Public Health. Several projects will jointly sponsor and use a longitudinal survey of 5,000 working age Californians to study the effect of emergent work organization and workplace exposures on health and to develop and test a multidimensional tool to evaluate the health of employment. Additional projects will use a customized sample of service workers to study the impact of inequality in working conditions and the State’s public health surveillance powers to gauge the impact of employment in the stone fabrication industry on the health of its largely immigrant workforce. CALL’s EVALUATION and PLANNING CORE develops strategic direction for the Center, manages its operations, and evaluates its progress. The activities of the Center are guided by a distinguished EXTERNAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE. The COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT BOARD will bring the perspectives of the State’s diverse population into the design and implementation of the Center’s research and outreach activities to reduce impacts on vulnerable populations.