# VALES+Tú: Targeting psychosocial stressors to reduce Latino Day Laborers injury disparities

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR HOUSTON · 2021 · $693,154

## Abstract

VALES+Tú: Targeting Psychosocial Stressors to Reduce Latino Day Laborers Injury
Disparities
Even as the safety of US workers continues to improve overall, the safety of Latino workers,
especially day laborers, continues to deteriorate. Latino day laborers (LDL) are predominantly
Spanish monolingual immigrant workers who experience multiple psychosocial stressors,
including situational and immigration stress that amplify their risk for injury at work. LDL look for
work at informal hiring sites or “corners” where they get hired intermittently to do a variety of
entry-level jobs whose shifting conditions expose them to multiple safety hazards. The most
alarming consequence of this constant rotation across unpredictable, dangerous jobs is the high
rate of job-related fatalities in this population.
Despite the urgent need, there are no effective and rigorously tested safety programs, portable
to the corner where LDL wait for work, to help them cope with stressors that increase their risk
for workplace injury. Our project's main goal is to address this question: Can a corner-based
safety program addressing the psycho social stressors confronted by LDL reduce their
reported exposure to hazardous conditions at work?
Our proposed project, VALES+Tú (You are worth/worthy of more) is a 5 year community-based
participatory program developed in partnership with Latino day laborers whose pilot results
provide evidence of increasing risk reduction practices and reducing hazardous exposures at
work. We are proposing to implement a multilevel intervention delivered in Spanish by LDL
promotores to their peers at the corners and to test the program's effectiveness in a cluster
randomized trial. The central aims of the project are: (1) to determine the efficacy of VALES+Tú
in reducing hazardous exposures at work, and (2) to determine the mediating effect of
psychosocial stressors on the primary outcomes of VALES+Tú.
All project activities will be done in collaboration with our community partner, the Fe y Justicia
(Faith and Justice) Worker Center, and with guidance from our Community Advisory Board .
The short-term goal of VALES+Tú is to reduce LDL workplace hazards by involving them in a
corner-based safety program that effectively addresses seldom targeted situational and
immigration stress that increase risky practices at work. Our long-term goal is to reduce the
high injury rates among Latino day laborers. Mitigating safety risks among LDL is an urgent
public health priority that can be addressed by taking effective, low-cost, preventive action.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10113368
- **Project number:** 5R01MD012928-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR HOUSTON
- **Principal Investigator:** MARIA EUGENIA FERNANDEZ-ESQUER
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $693,154
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-01 → 2023-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10113368

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10113368, VALES+Tú: Targeting psychosocial stressors to reduce Latino Day Laborers injury disparities (5R01MD012928-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10113368. Licensed CC0.

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