Building Health Promotion into the Job of Home Care Aides: Transformation of the Workplace Health Environment

Naoko Muramatsu, Lijuan Yin and Ting-Ti Lin
Additional contact information
Naoko Muramatsu: School of Public Health and Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
Lijuan Yin: School of Public Health and Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
Ting-Ti Lin: College of Nursing and Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-12

Abstract: Home care aides (HCAs), predominantly women, constitute one of the fastest growing occupations in the United States. HCAs work in clients’ homes that lack typical workplace resources and benefits. This mixed-methods study examined how HCAs’ work environment was transformed by a pilot workplace health promotion program that targeted clients as well as workers. The intervention started with training HCAs to deliver a gentle physical activity program to their older clients in a Medicaid-funded home care program. Older HCAs aged 50+ reported increased time doing the types of physical activity that they delivered to their clients (stretching or strengthening exercise) ( p = 0.027). Almost all (98%) HCAs were satisfied with the program. These quantitative results were corroborated by qualitative data from open-ended survey questions and focus groups. HCAs described how they exercised with clients and how the psychosocial work environment changed with the program. Building physical activity into HCAs’ job is feasible and can effectively promote HCAs’ health, especially among older HCAs.

Keywords: workplace health; physical activity; health promotion; direct service workers; long-term services and supports; caregivers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/4/384/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/4/384/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:4:p:384-:d:95065

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().