UPSKILL Health — Technical Report on Worker and Business Outcomes - SRDC

UPSKILL Health — Technical Report on Worker and Business Outcomes

Authors:Heather Smith FowlerGeneviève MákKelsey BrennanTaylor Shek-Wai HuiDavid Gyarmati

This document is the third deliverable for the UPSKILL Health and Mental Health Outcomes Study (UPSKILL Health), whose purpose is to explore the relationship of literacy and essential skills (LES) with health and mental health, using data from the original UPSKILL trial. As described in the Background section of this document, the UPSKILL trial was a large demonstration project that tested the effectiveness of workplace-based literacy and essential skills training for employees in the tourism accommodations sector.

The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) is the Canadian non-profit research organization that developed and managed UPSKILL, which ran from 2010 until 2014. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) contracted with SRDC in January 2014 to undertake a two phased sub-study that analyzes the health implications of the UPSKILL trial. Since the UPSKILL trial results were somewhat ambiguous with respect to health impacts (i.e., a negative impact on bodily pain; mixed results for mental health), the first phase involved a more in-depth and comprehensive analysis of health-related data already collected through UPSKILL; the results of these analyses are presented here.

The second phase – currently underway – is a qualitative inquiry involving key informant interviews and focus groups with a sample of UPSKILL participants. More detailed information on Phase Two will be provided in a separate report to the Public Health Agency in June 2015. The final report for UPSKILL Health will synthesize the results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses and explore implications for policy and practice, and will be delivered in September 2015

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