Understanding the Role of Academic Partners as Technical Assistance Providers: Results from an Exploratory Study to Address Precarious Work.

Tessa Bonney,Elizabeth Jarpe-Ratner,Lorraine Conroy,Christina Welter

doi:10.3390/ijerph16203903

Abstract

Universities may be well poised to support knowledge, skill, and capacity-building efforts to foster the development of multi-level interventions to address complex problems. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) engaged organizations interested in developing policy- and systems-level initiatives to address the drivers of precarious work in a six-meeting Action Learning (AL) process, in which the researchers served as technical assistance (TA) providers focused on facilitating learning and promoting critical thinking among participants. This exploratory qualitative study examined the role, facilitators, challenges, and impacts of university facilitation in this context. A total of 22 individuals participated in this study, including UIC TA providers, content expert TA providers from labor-focused organizations, and TA recipients from health-focused organizations. Results from interviews and a focus group highlight the utility of a university connecting organizations from different disciplines that do not traditionally work together, and suggest that the TA provided by UIC helped participants think concretely about precarious work and ways in which their organizations might work collaboratively to bring about sustainable change. Findings from this study suggest that university facilitation using an AL approach may be effective in increasing knowledge to action.

Highlights

In recent years, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has funded several Total Worker Health® Centers for Excellence at universities across the United States with the goal of building scientific evidence around innovative approaches to address complex problems faced by workers in the United States [1]
Results from interviews and a focus group highlight the utility of a university connecting organizations from different disciplines that do not traditionally work together, and suggest that the technical assistance (TA) provided by University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) helped participants think concretely about precarious work and ways in which their organizations might work collaboratively to bring about sustainable change
Seven UIC TA providers participated in the immediate post-Healthy Work Collaborative (HWC) focus group, representing all but one of the UIC representatives who helped to facilitate the HWC process

Summary

Introduction

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has funded several Total Worker Health® Centers for Excellence at universities across the United States with the goal of building scientific evidence around innovative approaches to address complex problems faced by workers in the United States [1]. The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Center for Healthy Work, one of the NIOSH Total Worker Health (TWH) Centers for Excellence, has focused its efforts on understanding the barriers faced by workers in these precarious jobs in Illinois, and building evidence around the development of interventions to remove those barriers [3]. Over the past several years, a subset of researchers at the UIC Center for Healthy Work have engaged with individuals and organizations in Chicago and across the state of Illinois to better understand the causes and consequences of precarious work and initiatives that are already underway to address them. Public Health 2019, 16, 3903; doi:10.3390/ijerph16203903 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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