I’ve always had
a passion for wanting to help and work with marginalized communities but had
never considered research as a driver. This summer I was given the opportunity
to work on the Latina Immigrant Multidisciplinary Project in Advancing Research
(LIMPiAR). This research project has required us to develop quantitative and
qualitative research methods to explore if social and family factors have
negative impacts on Latina women’s health, particularly those working in the
cleaning industry.
For the past two
weeks, our research team has been conducting in-depth interviews in conjunction
with survey questionnaires. Before
our interview process began, we knew we had to establish trust within the
community. Often times, due to fear, Latino communities can be a difficult
population to reach, therefore trust was an integral part of our research.
Using a Community Based Participatory Research approach, we began
attending community advisory board meetings and volunteered in community events
in hopes to build trusting relationships. As a result, we established rapport
with the community board members, who played a key role in helping us recruit
women for our research project.
The in-depth
interviews have been a humbling experience overall. Some interviews have
required us to spend more time than expected, but have resulted to be the most
insightful. In these interviews, women have been more than willing to share their
personal stories about community, family and job-related challenges. A lot of
work is ahead of us as we continue to analyze our data. We hope that the
interviews we have conducted can shine light on whether or not social and
family factors have negative impacts on Latina women’s health.
