Richardson Dawn M, Steeves-Reece Anna, Martin Allea, Hurtado David A, Dumet Lisset M, Goodman Julia M
Health Promotion & Community Health Program, OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, Portland, Oregon.
Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Portland, Oregon.
Health Equity. 2019 Apr 10;3(1):117-123. doi: 10.1089/heq.2019.0007. eCollection 2019.
Paid parental leave (PPL) policies offer immense opportunity to enhance health equity by providing financial stability to workers and promoting the health of families in the United States. Working in partnership with a local county government, which recently adopted a paid leave policy, we engaged in a qualitative substudy to enhance our understanding of how workers perceived and experienced the policy across levels of the socioecological framework. Working in partnership with Multnomah County, a large public-sector employer in Portland, OR that recently adopted a PPL policy, we collected qualitative data through focus groups with employees. Data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed thematically. We conducted seven focus groups with county employees (=35) in the fall of 2017. Three major themes emerged from the focus group data: intersectional inequities, disparities by department, and uneven benefits. Our findings highlight the inequities of experience with the PPL policy across employees at individual, organization, and environmental levels. These findings offer insight and guidance for entities considering the adoption and implementation of such policies to consider concrete steps to enhance equity of access and experience.
带薪育儿假（PPL）政策为美国的工人提供经济稳定并促进家庭健康，从而为增强健康公平性提供了巨大机遇。我们与当地县政府合作开展了一项定性子研究，该县政府最近通过了一项带薪休假政策，目的是加深我们对工人如何在社会生态框架的各个层面上看待和体验该政策的理解。我们与俄勒冈州波特兰市的大型公共部门雇主莫诺马县合作，该县最近通过了一项PPL政策，我们通过与员工进行焦点小组讨论收集了定性数据。对数据进行了转录、编码和主题分析。2017年秋季，我们与县雇员（=35人）进行了七次焦点小组讨论。焦点小组数据中出现了三个主要主题：交叉不平等、部门差异和福利不均。我们的研究结果突出了PPL政策在个人、组织和环境层面上员工体验的不平等。这些发现为考虑采用和实施此类政策的实体提供了见解和指导，以考虑采取具体措施来增强获取和体验的公平性。
