ArticleCMAJ open
Precarious work among personal support workers in the Greater Toronto Area: a respondent-driven sampling study.
Article in CMAJ open. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Antecedents of well-being of home care workers: a mixed-methods systematic review.The Gerontologist · 2026Pooled it
- "Everything has changed since COVID": Ongoing challenges faced by Canadian adults with intellectual disabilities during waves 2 and 3 of the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of intellectual disabilities : JOID · 2026Article
- Article
- Patterns of SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity among essential workers in long term care and retirement homes in Ontario, Canada: A descriptive cross-sectional study.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Vulnerability: An Interpretive Descriptive Study of Personal Support Workers' Experiences of Working During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ontario, Canada.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Ramifications of Precarious Employment for Health and Health Inequity: Emerging Trends from the Americas.Annual review of public health · 2024Review
- An equitable vaccine delivery system: Lessons from the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Canada.PloS one · 2022Article
- Employing Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) to recruit people who inject drugs (PWID) and other hard-to-reach populations during COVID-19: Lessons learned.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- A Brief Tool to Screen Patients for Precarious Employment: A Validation Study.Annals of family medicineArticle
- Wages or Legitimacy? A Qualitative Analysis of Home Care Worker Perspectives in Choosing Work Settings.Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financingArticle
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role of personal support workers (PSWs) in health care, as well as their work conditions. Our study aimed to understand the characteristics of the PSW workforce, their work conditions and their job security, as well as to explore the health of PSWs and the impact of precarious employment on their health.
methodsOur community-based participatory action research focused on PSWs in the Greater Toronto Area. We administered an online, cross-sectional survey between June and December 2020 using respondent-driven sampling. Data on sociodemographics, employment precarity, worker empowerment and health status were collected. We assessed the association between precarious employment and health using multivariable logistic regression models.
resultsWe contacted 739 PSWs, and 664 consented to participate. Overall, 658 (99.1%) completed at least part of the survey. Using data adjusted for our sampling approach, the participants were predominantly Black (76.5%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 68.2%-84.9%), women (90.1%, 95% CI 85.1%-95.1%) and born outside of Canada (97.4%, 95% CI 94.9%-99.9%). Most worked in home care (43.9%, 95% CI 35.2%-52.5%) or long-term care (34.5%, 95% CI 27.4%-42.0%). Although most participants had at least some postsecondary education (unadjusted proportion = 83.4%,
interpretationDespite being key members of health care teams, most PSWs were precariously employed with low wages that keep them in poverty; the poor work conditions they faced could be detrimental to their physical and mental health. Equitable strategies are needed to provide decent work conditions for PSWs and to improve their health.
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