Skip to content
Know Your Rights
Source: Queens Gazette
Subject: Profiles of MRNY
Type: Media Coverage

CDC Awards Grant To Queens College And Make The Road

The destruction of the World Trade Center has shown that conditions after disasters can be very dangerous, both short- and long-term, for the workers involved in cleanup and reconstruction. Post-Superstorm Sandy workers may also be facing threats to health and safety.

Now that will be less likely to occur, thanks to a federal grant of $547,000 to the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (CBNS) at Queens College of the City University of New York and the immigrant-focused organization Make the Road New York. This two-year grant, which began September 30, was awarded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to conduct research on improving working conditions for immigrant construction laborers in post-disaster reconstruction.

It is part of the federal government’s response to the needs created by Sandy’s devastation. This project will fill important gaps in knowledge about the prevalence of unsafe working conditions in this post-hurricane environment and will develop and test methods of addressing those hazards.

Steven Markowitz, M.D., director of the CBNS said: “Given what we all learned from the illness of workers engaged in clean-up of Ground Zero, it is critical to prevent postdisaster workers from becoming ill when we are uncertain about the hazards. We do this by educating them and providing them with proper protective equipment.”

Make the Road New York works with immigrant laborers in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn, as well as Brentwood, Long Island. Once recruited for this project, the laborers will be trained and will conduct more than 200 worksite safety and health hazard assessments. Whatever is preventing, or helping to ensure, safe work conditions will be identified through focus groups and interviews.

As a result, CBNS and Make the Road New York expect to identify new training content and methods to address workplace safety and health hazards for immigrant workers. This material will be disseminated to community groups, labor organizations, the public health community, and other concerned parties.

Other partners in this project include the CUNY School of Public Health, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New Perspectives, and Maria Brunette, PhD.

To view the original article, click here.