2023-2024
Ricardo Diego Suárez Rojas, a Doctoral Candidate at the Boston College School of Social Work, has received a Harvard Education and Research Center (ERC) Pilot Project Grant for his study, “Characterizing Experiences of Workplace Violence among Hospital Patient Care Employees.” Dr. Erika Sabbath, Center Co-Director and Principal Investigator for the Center’s Boston Hospital Workers Health Study, will be the Principal Investigator for this project. Data from the Boston Hospital Workers Health Study will be used for this mixed-methods pilot exploring the etiology of workplace violence among nurses and patient-care associates. The project aims to understand what policies can better protect these workers before, during, and after a violent incident. Within an established occupational cohort study, the researchers will triangulate multiple data sources (survey data, injury reports, and semi-structured interviews) and integrate them with relevant social theory to understand violence as a continuum. The focus will be on how the intersection of work, gender, race, and nationality relates to the risks and consequences of experiencing different types of violence (e.g., verbal and physical).
This research project is supported by the NIOSH-funded Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Education and Research Center.