Safe and Just Cleaners: Reducing exposure to toxic cleaning chemical products among low wage immigrant Latino Community members

最近的研究记录了常见清洁化学品对健康的影响，包括皮肤和呼吸道 刺激和哮喘，以及潜在的生殖影响和乳腺癌。然而，生产和 这些产品的分销继续扩大。作为回应，公共卫生行动旨在减少接触 在公共建筑和学校中替代使用对环境更安全的产品， 认证的环境安全产品标签。虽然这些举措在接触某些群体方面取得了成功 工人和消费者，低工资的家庭佣工和其他清洁工人，他们是不成比例的移民， 由于知识、意识、成本和可及性等因素，拉丁美洲人在很大程度上被排除在外。安全与公正 清洁工项目旨在通过记录和减少清洁暴露来解决这种环境健康差异 代理人在纽约市拉丁美洲移民工人社区的家政清洁工人，作为大学的一部分- 社区伙伴关系。这个项目的理由是，一旦国内清洁工，作为一个大的和有影响力的一部分， 社区组织，获得能力和知识，以认识到他们作为工人的暴露和潜在风险， 这将为建立一个共同的工人社区的努力，同时将奠定基础a）改善条件， 他们自己作为清洁工人，和B）减少接触危险的清洁剂，在更大的社区， 工人是一部分。与纽约市最大的拉丁裔移民社区组织合作， 该项目有3万名成员，将调查拉丁美洲家庭佣工的使用情况、工作实践、价值观、知识 以及对与消费者清洁产品使用相关的潜在危害和自我报告的健康问题的态度。 然后，该项目将确定和定量评估导致吸入和吸入的接触水平和条件， 皮肤接触挥发性有机化合物和季铵化合物，这两种主要的潜在有毒成分 商业清洁剂，在拉丁美洲移民家庭清洁工人。该项目将测量暴露 在清洁时以及可能继续污染家庭环境的残余暴露时， 清洁工作完成后。这些调查结果将用于制定和实施多层次的战略运动， 通过地方和国家伙伴关系减少移民社区的风险。将这场运动 从工人权利和社会正义的角度出发，提供了一种教育人们了解更安全替代品的方法， 同时采取更广泛的方案和政策举措以减少风险。

Recent research has documented the health impacts of common cleaning chemicals, including skin and respiratory irritation and asthma, as well as potential reproductive effects and breast cancer. Nonetheless, the production and distribution of these products continues to expand. In response public health actions have aimed to reduce exposures through substituting use of environmentally safer products in public buildings and schools and encouraging development of certified environmentally safer product labels. While these initiatives have been successful at reaching certain groups of workers and consumers, low wage domestic and other cleaning workers, who are disproportionately immigrant and Latino, have been largely left out due to factors including knowledge, awareness, cost and accessibility. The Safe and Just Cleaners Project aims to address this environmental health disparity by documenting and reducing exposures to cleaning agents among domestic cleaning workers in the Latino immigrant worker community in NYC, as part of a University- Community partnership. The rationale for this project is that once domestic cleaners, as part of a large and influential community-based organization, gain capacity and knowledge to recognize their exposures and potential risks as workers, this will lay the basis for building a joint worker-community effort that will simultaneously a) improve conditions for themselves as cleaning workers, and b) reduce exposure to hazardous cleaning agents in the larger community of which the workers are a part. Working collaboratively with the largest Latino immigrant community-based organization in NYC, with 30,000 members, the project will survey Latino domestic workers about their use, work practices, values, knowledge and attitudes about potential hazards and self-reported health problems associated with consumer cleaning product use. The project will then identify and quantitatively evaluate the exposure levels and conditions that result in inhalation and dermal exposures to volatile organic and quaternary ammonium compounds, two major and potentially toxic components of commercial cleaning agents, among Latino immigrant domestic cleaning workers. The project will measure exposures both at the time of cleaning as well as residual exposures that might continue to contaminate home environments even after cleaning tasks are complete. These findings will be used to develop and implement a multilevel strategic campaign to reduce exposures among immigrant communities through local and national partnerships. Embedding this campaign within a workers’ rights and social justice perspective provides an approach that educates people about safer alternatives while simultaneously pursuing broader programmatic and policy initiatives to reduce exposures.