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

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 healt...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Muramatsu, Naoko, Yin, Lijuan, Lin, Ting-Ti
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5409585/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28379207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14040384
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author Muramatsu, Naoko
Yin, Lijuan
Lin, Ting-Ti
author_facet Muramatsu, Naoko
Yin, Lijuan
Lin, Ting-Ti
author_sort Muramatsu, Naoko
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-54095852017-05-03 Building Health Promotion into the Job of Home Care Aides: Transformation of the Workplace Health Environment Muramatsu, Naoko Yin, Lijuan Lin, Ting-Ti Int J Environ Res Public Health Article 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. MDPI 2017-04-05 2017-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5409585/ /pubmed/28379207 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14040384 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Muramatsu, Naoko
Yin, Lijuan
Lin, Ting-Ti
Building Health Promotion into the Job of Home Care Aides: Transformation of the Workplace Health Environment
title Building Health Promotion into the Job of Home Care Aides: Transformation of the Workplace Health Environment
title_full Building Health Promotion into the Job of Home Care Aides: Transformation of the Workplace Health Environment
title_fullStr Building Health Promotion into the Job of Home Care Aides: Transformation of the Workplace Health Environment
title_full_unstemmed Building Health Promotion into the Job of Home Care Aides: Transformation of the Workplace Health Environment
title_short Building Health Promotion into the Job of Home Care Aides: Transformation of the Workplace Health Environment
title_sort building health promotion into the job of home care aides: transformation of the workplace health environment
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5409585/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28379207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14040384
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