Resource
Presentation
David Wofford, the Evidence Project’s Senior Advisor for Workplace Programs, presented at the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Forum on Public-Private Partnerships for Global Health and Safety discussing the emerging opportunities and needs to provide healthcare to supply chain-level workers for multinational workplaces in lower income countries, with a specific focus on women.
Wofford points to the changing landscape of factory workers, many of whom leave their rural hometowns to begin work in factories located in big cities leaving them cut off from social networks. The traditional approach to worker health in factory settings that has placed priority on preventing injury overlooks the growing opportunity for health education and provision to the disconnected workers they serve. Because a majority of workers are females of reproductive age, there is also a real opportunity for family planning education in worker health clinics.
The Evidence Project’s research on worker health addresses this gap.
The IOM’s Forum on Private-Public Partnerships for Global Health and Safety provided a unique and important space to discuss the ways public-private partnerships can strengthen health and safety needs of individuals and communities around the globe. Looking at the “shared value” that can be created between the private and public sectors was a theme pervading the conversation.