| Abstract |
The POLISH project has identified multiple exposures of Vietnamese nail salon workers and Asian Pacific Islander girls through occupational and consumer use to chemicals which are either proven or suspected health stressors, as well as added to the body of knowledge about to how make effective interventions with low-income, immigrant and refugee workers and girls within an ethnic-specific small business niche which will impact practice by nail salon community members and among researchers, regulators, the environmental justice movement and the womens and community health fields. The POLISH project is based on the methodology of community based participatory research, and integrates several strands of research and interventions into one project that maximizes community participation. Specifically, POLISH continued to build on ACRJs: (1) strong working partnership of community, academic, and clinic partners developed over the past nine years; (2) demonstrated and replicable model of CBPR which engaged API women and girls in researching environmental health issues, educating their community, and developing successful environmental health interventions, also developed over the past nine years; (3) multi-tiered youth leadership program involving over 500 API girls from low-income, immigrant and refugee families over the past nine years; and (4) using the youth leadership model, POLISH developed a multi-tiered worker leadership program involving over 200 Vietnamese, low-income, immigrant and refugee women nail salon workers. |
