Association between Workplace Violations and Behavioral Health Outcomes Among Migrant Workers: A Modified Systematic Review

Background and Purpose: Precarious employment or work precarity is a pressing social and health concern, with potential consequences for quality of lives and health of employees, particularly of the vulnerable population of undocumented migrant workers. Following the structural-environmental framework, the current modified systematic review aims to critique and compare the existing research on different behavioral health outcomes experienced by migrant workers and examine the prevalence of workplace violations in different social, cultural, and work contexts. The review is guided by the following primary research questions:

For quantitative studies:

R1.A: What risk factors of workplace violations are associated with behavioral health outcomes among migrant workers?

For qualitative studies:

R1.B: What different dimensions of workplace violations and its subsequent behavioral

health outcomes are experienced by migrant workers.

Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted using Scopus, PubMed and SocINDEX will full text databases. The following keywords and Boolean logic were used to conduct the search in each database: (work* condition OR work* abuse OR workplace right* OR precarious OR work environment) AND (mental health OR depression OR psychological stress OR substance use OR burnout OR anxiety) AND (migrant OR low wage worker* OR low skilled OR unskilled). Search parameters include the following inclusion criteria: selected studies are peer-reviewed, published in English, studies conducted with migrant workers in low-wage work, examined association between at least one dimension of the outcome variable and exposure variable, published between 2000 and 2022, cross-sectional and qualitative studies.

Results: The systematic steps involved in the search and screen process are reported through the means of PRISMA. In the initial search, a total of 336 articles were identified. After duplicates were removed, a total of 278 articles were identified for title and abstract screening. After the title and abstract screening, n=49 articles were eligible for full text screening. As a result of the screening processes, a total of 10 studies were included in the current review. In terms of the sample population, 50% of the studies were conducted with migrant domestic workers or migrant live-in care givers and the other half were with either a mixed ethnic group of migrant workers or Latina/o migrant workers. Most of the studies used culturally appropriate data collection techniques such as employment of bilingual interviewers, interviewing participants in a private location, among others. The methods used for statistical analysis were appropriate for the overall research design and similarly for qualitative studies, the thematic analysis used by each of the study aligned with the overall research objectives.

Conclusions and Implications: While the findings of the studies indicate towards the compounding effect of limited access to support on the psychological wellbeing of migrant workers, social work practitioners and researchers may work towards developing more culturally sensitive services for the labor communities. As the policy rhetoric continue to portray a negative positionality of im/migrant workers, it is critical from a social justice standpoint that researchers further explore and amplify the lived experiences of sub-groups of im/migrants to ensure more research-informed social and public strategies to alleviate stigmatization.