In this episode of Michigan Minds, Marie-Anne Sanon Rosemberg, PhD, RN, assistant professor at the School of Nursing, discusses her research addressing health disparities among youth and adult working populations, and how COVID-19 is impacting the low-wage workforce.

Rosemberg focuses on low-wage service workers because the many factors that impact their health and well-being are often not addressed.

“Racial and ethnic minorities make up the majority of the low-wage workforce,” she says. They tend to work in unsafe conditions and are less likely to have access to benefits—and also, because of fear of retaliation, many do not advocate for themselves.”

She studies how workers manage chronic conditions, but also why they are getting sick at a higher rate than their higher-income counterparts in the first place. Rosemberg looks at the problem from multiple angles, focusing on an array of components such as work demand and job security, as well as systemic structural factors like resource access and neighborhood, to understand how these factors interface to affect workers’ health and well-being. The outcome, she says, is a very complex model for stress exposure.

Many of the individuals in the low-wage workforce live and work in suboptimal conditions. “These workers continue to be the ones with the highest rates of chronic conditions, and are more likely to experience injuries at work and continue to face challenges outside of work also,” Rosemberg says.

She says that the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the workers’ physical, mental, and economic well-being. She is collecting data from groups of workers including those employed at hotels and restaurants to better understand the impact of COVID-19, asking respondents what their current needs are. Responses so far include paid time off, a stable income, and money for gas and diapers.

“We’re not talking about abstract things, we’re talking about basic needs that are not being met.”

Learn more from Rosemberg in this episode of Michigan Minds.