Project Overview
This project consists of a multiple case study of older, precariously employed food workers in two U.S. states (Indiana and Washington) during the COVID-19 pandemic, designed to explore the links between employment quality and social context as drivers of disease prevention. This deposit is of individual semi-structured qualitative data in the form of de-identified and generalized transcripts of the interviews conducted.
Data and Data Collection Overview
We conducted data compilation, document review, and 26 in-depth interviews using a multiple case study design with two states, Indiana and Washington, constituting the cases (Stake, 2005). For each case, sources consisted of secondary data regarding state context (e.g., policy landscape and health measures) and semi-structured individual interviews with food retail or service workers. Details on the secondary data sources and indicators used in our analysis are available in a published manuscript associated with this deposit.
Participants were recruited and interviewed between January and October 2021. Eligibility for the interviews was limited to English or Spanish-speaking adults, aged 40 years or older, who were employed in food retail or services for at least three months total from when COVID-19 appeared in each state in 2020 until the time of the interview. We originally aimed to recruit workers 50 years and older because risk of severe consequences of COVID-19 increases with age. In order to boost recruitment and prioritize hearing from people who would have deep and nuanced perspectives on our issue of study, we subsequently lowered eligibility to age 40. This allowed us to hear from those in prime working age and those who are older. We set income restrictions to those earning below a living wage in Indiana, defined by MIT’s living wage calculator ($11.04/hour; Glasmeier, 2021), or earning below the minimum wage in Washington ($15.75/hour). We sampled purposively to achieve variety in level of exposure to the public in one’s job, race and ethnicity, sex/gender, and education – factors related to the likelihood for workplace exposures to COVID-19, sociodemographic characteristics important to understanding the experience of precarious employment, and which appear related to COVID-19 severity and consequences.
Interviews took place by videoconference (Zoom) or telephone, depending on participant preference. We obtained oral informed consent from all study participants and audio-recorded the conversations with their permission. A transcription generated automatically using Otter.ai was corrected and formatted using the recorded audio. The semi-structured interview guide consisted of open-ended questions about facilitators and barriers to following prevention guidelines, COVID-19 protective measures taken in the workplace, other influences on preventive behaviors, and sources of COVID-19-related information. It also contained a checklist meant to allow the interviewer to delineate workplace preventive efforts described by the participants.
Interviews ranged from 53 to 133 minutes and were all completed in English. Interviewees received a $40 gift card for participating.
Selection and Organization of Shared Data
We conducted 26 total interviews but three of those are not included in the shared data because the question about consent to share their data had not yet been added to the consent script or the interview guide when those first interviews were conducted.
Since those participants did not actively opt out of data sharing, and all others agreed to it explicitly, it is unlikely that there was anything systematically different in the three interviews which are not being shared. Based on the demographic data we have about them, nothing stands out, and the shared sample includes persons with similar characteristics.
The data files in this project include the 23 transcripts for which we obtained explicit permission for sharing and a table containing age and gender identity for the 23 interviewees included in this submission. The documentation files include all the study’s recruitment materials, the interview guide / questionnaire, this data narrative and an administrative README file. |
