Abstract

This article presents an exploratory study of how the social construction of risk, including stereotypes of migrant home care workers, as well as the character of official workplace health and safety regulation, may influence the ways in which occupational health risks are identified and managed by doctors. We focus our analysis upon migrant home care workers (HCWs) in Italy, who are exposed to multiple risks of developing physical and mental health problems. We begin by considering the reasons for the relative invisibility of HCWs’ health and safety risks, including wider constructions of women’s work as well as the ways these workers are treated by mainstream health and safety regulation. While Italian law requires employers to deploy occupational health doctors to monitor workers’ health and safety, work in domestic premises is excluded, so a HCW seeking certification of a workplace injury or illness would most likely approach her general practitioner (GP). However, little is known about GPs’ and other doctors’ awareness of the occupational origins of their patients’ illnesses and injuries. Our analysis starts to answer these questions through qualitative interviews with 16 doctors (mainly GPs) in Veneto regarding their understandings of migrant women’s health risks conducted between 2019 and 2020.

摘要

本文提出了一项探索性研究，探讨风险的社会建构，包括对流动家庭护理人员的刻板印象，以及官方工作场所健康和安全监管的特征，如何影响医生识别和管理职业健康风险的方式。我们的分析重点是意大利的移民家庭护理人员 (HCW)，他们面临着出现身心健康问题的多种风险。我们首先考虑医护人员的健康和安全风险相对不可见的原因，包括更广泛的女性工作结构以及主流健康和安全法规对待这些工人的方式。虽然意大利法律要求雇主部署职业健康医生来监测工人的健康和安全，但在家庭场所工作不包括在内，因此，寻求工伤或疾病证明的医护人员很可能会联系她的全科医生 (GP)。然而，人们对全科医生和其他医生对其患者疾病和伤害的职业根源的认识知之甚少。我们的分析开始通过对威尼托 16 名医生（主要是全科医生）进行定性访谈来回答这些问题，了解他们对 2019 年至 2020 年间移民妇女健康风险的理解。