Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Nurseries' Workers toward Infection Prevention among the Children

Background: Infections are common in the children attending daycare centers how act as predisposes to it. Hygienic interventions have a fundamental role in infection control and disease prevention in child care settings. Objective: - To evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of nurseries workers in infection prevention and control among the children. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study using the researcher-developed questionnaire validated by two experts and piloted and 100 nurseries-workers had participated in it. Result: the mean age of participants was 37.5 years±12.1, (37%) aged 18-30 yrs, 58% married, and 57% with higher education, 54% of nurseries the participant take care of 11-20 children. 67 (67%) had correct knowledge about infection control, (91%) had the corrected practice, but unfortunately, 47 (47%) had low-attitude. Education level has significantly associated with the knowledge, attitude, and practice of the child care workers. Conclusion: the majority of the nurseries workers had good knowledge and correct practice and less about their attitude in infection prevention.

Counter-professionalization as an occupational status strategy: The production of professionalism in Israeli child-care workers’ identity work

Recent approaches to professions and professional identity question the premise that professionalization is the ultimate generator of status, showing that the classical model of professionalization does not always coincide with workers’ creative construction of professionalism and professional dignity. Extending these approaches, and focusing on workers’ identity discourse, this study examines how private child-care workers in Israel claim professional status precisely by avoiding formal professionalization and promoting a counter-professionalization ethos. Drawing on field observations and interviews, we analyze nannies’ tacit occupational community dynamics, by which they establish professional rules and boundaries and discursively construct a respected professional self. Their identity-talk reveals a vocational self-imaging based on personal charisma, one that resists training and credentials. This vocational self-imaging allows rebuttal of the nanny stereotype as a low-class uneducated workforce, associated with their ethnicized backgrounds, by symbolically transforming it and using it as a high-value identity resource. This counter-professionalized identity-talk prevails despite the social distinction between senior and junior nannies. Thereby, nannies gain professional status while the professionalization of child care is rejected. The analysis of these cultural dynamics provides a stronger perspective on professions as spheres of identity construction—specifically those ranked lower as unskilled labor—and on workers’ agency behind their ostensibly passive compliance with under-professionalization.

Child Care Workers’ Perspectives on Transition Services for Pre-school Children with Special Needs in Hong Kong

Transitions that all young children have to make (including children with special needs) involve: starting school, moving from kindergarten to primary school, and sometimes moving from one school to another. With increasing awareness of the importance of early childhood education and intervention, transition planning for young children is attracting much more attention and action. Research suggests that there is a relationship between children’s successful transitions and the outcomes of their development in cognition, literacy, social adjustment, and adaptive skills. However, the perspectives of teachers in transition planning were not sufficiently explored in the literature in the Chinese context. This paper focuses on the experiences, ideas, and perspectives of pre-school child care workers on the vertical transition of children from pre-school special centres to other educational institutions in Hong Kong. Individual face-to-face interviews were conducted with child care workers who work in special child care centres. Importance of transition planning for children with special needs, the role of pre-school special child care workers, challenges in the process, and suggestions for improvement are discussed. In particular, methods for facilitating the parents’ choice of appropriate primary schools are shared.

Benefits for Child Care Workers: How the State Could Help through a Medicaid Waiver

Child care is expensive, and many parents struggle to afford care; furthermore, even though child care costs are high, child care providers in the United States (US) are not making a living wage. Child care professionals (ages 0-5 in child care homes or centers) earn less income than Kindergarten teachers, pre-K teachers, non-farm animal caretakers, and the US estimate of all workers’ annual median salary (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020a, 2020b). Workers in comparable professions are also usually offered benefits for their labor, which child care professionals are not (Kwon, 2019; National Survey of Early Care and Education Project Team, 2020; Otten et al., 2019; Whitebook, McLean, Austin, & Edwards, 2018). This often necessitates use of public assistance. Because many child care workers are not provided access to health insurance or other health-related benefits through their employers, they must seek access to health care in other ways. Additionally, turnover rates among child care workers are high, and wages and benefits are a large part of the reason why child care professionals leave their jobs (McDougald Scott, 2021a). This policy analysis (a) reviewed the current struggle (as of May 2021) that child care workers in the United States (in general) and South Carolina (in particular) experience compared with employees in other fields; and (b) explore options (particularly a Medicaid waiver option) that might improve the situation. South Carolina (SC) is one of the 13 states that have not expanded Medicaid; most of the 13 states are in Southern United States (US) region, which makes an extrapolation of SC research reasonable. Lessons learned from SC childcare data should reflect closely what may be found in other non-expansion states, but research from the literature review will not be SC-specific. Relevant peer-reviewed, government documents, state and national data, and grey literature were reviewed and analyzed. There have been ongoing efforts (although insufficient even in more successful efforts) with mixed results to improve the pay for child care workers for decades. Progress for earning a living wage will require a systems overhaul for early education, but child care providers cannot wait for workforce environmental improvements. Action must be taken now to augment the shortage of healthcare access for child care providers. In SC, Medicaid helps some child care workers receive access to health care, but expansion through Medicaid waiver 1115 would include many more child care workers who do not currently have access.

Implementation of a workplace physical activity intervention in child care: process evaluation results from the Care2BWell trial

Care2BWell was designed to evaluate the efficacy of Healthy Lifestyles (HL), a worksite health promotion intervention to increase child care workers’ physical activity. The purpose of this study was to use process evaluation to describe the implementation of HL and determine if different levels of implementation are associated with changes in workers’ physical activity. Data were collected from 250 workers randomized to HL, a 6 month, multilevel intervention that included an educational workshop followed by three 8 week campaigns that included self-monitoring and feedback, raffle incentive, social support, and center director coaching. Process evaluation data collection included direct observation, self-reported evaluation surveys, website analytics and user test account data, tracking databases and semi-structured interviews. Implementation scores were calculated for each intervention component and compared at the center and individual levels. Nearly a third of workers never self-monitored and few (16%) met self-monitoring goals. Only 39% of centers engaged with the social support component as intended. Raffle and social support components were perceived as the least useful. Implementation varied widely by center (25%–76%) and individual workers (0%–94%). No within- or between-group differences for high compared to low implementation groups for change in physical activity were evident. Interview themes included limited sustainability, competing priorities, importance of social support, and desire for a more intensive, personalized intervention. Wide variation in implementation may explain limited effects on intervention outcomes. Future worksite interventions designed for child care workers can use these findings to optimize health promotion in this setting.

Occupational risk of COVID-19 by country of birth. A register-based study

AimTo assess the role of occupation in the spread of COVID-19 among immigrants in Norway.MethodsIn 2.729.627 residents in Norway aged 20-70 years and born in Norway, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey (mean [SD] age 44 (14) years and 51% men), we examined whether persons employed as taxi drivers, bus- and tram drivers, child care workers, nurses, personal care workers in health, food service counter attendants, waiters/bartenders, cleaners and shop sale persons had a higher risk of COVID-19, from April 1st 2020 to December 2nd 2020, compared to 1) Norwegian-born in the same occupational group and 2) all others with the same birth country and aged 20-70 years, using logistic regressions.ResultsWithin each of the included occupational groups, immigrants had a greatly increased odds of COVID-19 when compared to Norwegian-born (OR ∼ 1.66-12.72). However, immigrants working in the selected occupations had the same odds of COVID-19 as person with same birth country not having the same occupation (OR∼1). Exceptions were Somalian-, Afghani- and Iraqi personal care workers in health services who had an increased odds of COVID-19 (OR 1.61 (95% CI 1.31, 1.98), OR 1.46 (1.06, 2.02) and OR 1.40 (1.03, 1.91), respectively) compared to others from the same country.ConclusionImmigrants holding various occupations implying close contact with others did not have higher odds of notified infection than others with the same country of birth, except for health care workers. Our study indicates that occupation is not an important driver of the high rates of COVID-19 among immigrants from Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey.

Equitable Vaccine Access within an Age-Based Framework

ObjectivesSeveral states have adopted age-based prioritization for COVID-19 vaccine eligibility (also prioritizing teachers and child care workers) because it is simple (especially when age is quantized by decade) and age is strongly associated with COVID-19 mortality. But this approach raises equity concerns based in law and ethics. This study proposes data-driven solutions for equitable policy that retains the advantages of an age-based approach.MethodsUsing data from CDC and U.S. Census Bureau, I analyzed 507,227 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by age and race-ethnicity and compared the risk ratios to published data on risk ratios for other conditions.ResultsCOVID-19 mortality in the U.S. rose 2.59-fold per decade of life [95% confidence interval (2.52, 2.66)]. Down syndrome, organ transplantation, and intellectual/developmental disability have risk ratios for COVID-19 mortality that exceed that.ConclusionsPeople with specific conditions (including certain disabilities and certain medical conditions) associated with a risk ratio of 2.59 or 6.71 should be granted vaccine eligibility along with people 10 or 20 years older, respectively. Along with additional recommendations on data collection and reporting, this could help address equity within an age-based framework.3-Question Summary BoxSome states have adopted age-only prioritization for COVID-19 vaccine access, quantized by decade of life, because it is simple, and age has a strong association with COVID-19 mortality. But this raises concerns based in law and ethics.This study quantifies the age effect and documents that COVID-19 mortality increases 2.59-fold per decade of life—a smaller increase than some conditions.People with conditions associated with at least 2.59-fold COVID-19 mortality should be granted vaccine eligibility along with people at least 10 years older.