Strengthening Global Health Workplace Policies and Programs

The RAISE Health initiative, a major activity of the Evidence Project, collaborates with companies, global health groups, governments, and civil society organizations to promote practical steps for strengthening corporate policies at the global level, and establishing good practices in supply chains. This is based on evidence of successful workplace health models and improved business results with the goal of ultimately, improving the access to quality FP/RH services and better health outcomes for women in the workplace. Evidence-based policy advocacy is critical to stimulating a systematic policy change required for the adoption of new policies and guidelines that improve access to FP and other women’s health services in the workplace. Such changes are also good business.

PROMOTING AN ENABLING ENVIRONMENT AT THE GLOBAL AND LOCAL LEVELS

The Evidence Project is part of a five-year USAID project to improve the health of female garment workers in Cambodia. It is facilitating policy changes at the factory, corporate, and government levels to create an environment that increases access to family planning and reproductive health services. The project builds on RAISE Health’s global efforts to promote strong health policies for companies and their supply chains. Working with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) through its HERproject initiative, RAISE Health has developed voluntary Workplace Health Facility Guidelines and Management Benchmarks that adapt best public health practices to the commercial workplace.

STRENGTHENING THE MANAGEMENT AND QUALITY OF WORKPLACE HEALTH FACILITIES

With funding from the HRA Pharma Foundation, the Evidence Project has pilot-tested a re-engineered health service in a Haitian factory, building the factory’s human resource capacity to manage its health staff and infirmary, instituting clinical best practices in the health clinic, and developing a proactive, preventive role for nurses, including promotion of family planning. We are utilizing these findings in providing technical assistance to Levi Strauss & Co. and to BSR’s HERproject to replicate components of the model at a supplier factory in Egypt and elsewhere.

INCREASING ACCESS TO HEALTH EDUCATION MATERIALS AT THE WORKPLACE

Bayer Pharmaceuticals and the Evidence Project are adapting existing family planning and reproductive health materials targeted to workers that can be accessed online and printed onsite by workplace health staff or management. Bayer and RAISE Health will be collaborating with other organizations to expand the package of health materials. This activity is also linked to promoting policies that expand worker access to health services and information.