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Premji Stephanie, Associate Professor | Graduate Chair

photo of Stephanie Premji

Stephanie Premji

Associate Professor | Graduate Chair

Faculty
School of Labour Studies

Area(s) of Interest:

Biography

Job security decreases. People move around the planet more easily.

Issues such as precarious employment, or being a non-white worker, aren’t solely a matter of business, economics or even social justice; they are also health issues. Stephanie Premji researchers how employment issues affect health.

Some such issues are as mundane as daily commutes – more and more people work multiple jobs in different locations, and spent large parts of their days (and nights) in transit. Spending three to six hours traveling each day can create sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, and social and behavioural problems for workers, and also for their children.

Premji’s work relies on having the infrastructure in place to reach historically marginalized groups, and provide them with information and interpretation in languages and formats that encourage them to participate in research.

For Premji, this means working with community partners – not just to find translators and study participants, but also to shape the research itself, and to feed the results back into those communities.

In her teaching, Premji finds many of her students turn out to be second-generation Canadians whose parents have experienced first-hand de-skilling and precarious employment. She appreciates how students feel connected to her field of expertise, and trusts that as they increase their understanding of these issues, they will be better positioned to affect them.

Teaching

Labour Studies

  • Labour Studies 1C03 “Voices of Work, Resistance and Change
  • Labour Studies 3D03 / Health & Aging 3DD3 “Work: Dangerous to your Health?”
  • Work & Society 715 “Research Methods”

 

Health, Aging & Society

  • Labour Studies 3D03 / Health & Aging 3DD3 “Work: Dangerous to your Health?”
  • Health & Aging 3B03 “Research Methods II”
  • Health & Aging 4I03 “Aging and Health”

Research

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Premji, S. In press. Mechanisms of inequalities in health and safety: conceptual model and research agenda. PISTES (Perspectives Interdisciplinaires sur le Travail et la Santé).

Premji, S., Lewchuk W. 2013. Racialized and gendered disparities in occupational exposures among Chinese and white workers in Toronto, Canada. Ethnicity & Health. Published online October 23.

Premji, S. Smith, P. 2013. Education-to-job mismatch and the risk of work injury. Injury Prevention, 19(2): 106-111 **Paper selected for press release by BMJ** 

Premji, S. Etowa J. 2012. Workforce utilization of visible and linguistic minorities in Canadian nursing. Journal of Nursing Management. Epub ahead of print.

Hanley, J., Premji, S., Messing, K., Lippel, K. 2010. Action research for the health and safety of domestic workers in Montreal: using numbers to tell stories and effect change. New Solutions, 20: 421-439.

Premji, S. Krause, N. 2010. Disparities by ethnicity, language and immigrant status in occupational health experiences among Las Vegas hotel room cleaners. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 53: 960-975.  

Premji, S. Duguay, P. Messing, K., Lippel, K. 2010. Are immigrants, ethnic and linguistic minorities over-represented in jobs with a high level of compensated risk? Results from a Montréal, Canada study using census and workers’ compensation data. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 53: 875-885. 

Premji, S., Lippel, K., Messing, K. (2008) “On travaille à la seconde!” Rémunération à la pièce et santé et sécurité du travail dans une perspective qui tient compte de l’ethnicité et du genre (“We work by the second!” Piecework remuneration and occupational health and safety from an ethnicity- and gender-sensitive perspective). PISTES, 10(1)
http://www.pistes.uqam.ca/v10n1/articles/v10n1a2en.htm

Premji, S., Messing, K., Lippel, K. (2008) Would a “one-handed” scientist lack rigor? How scientists discuss the work-relatedness of musculoskeletal disorders in formal and  informal communications. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 51(3), 173-185. 

Messing, K., Premji, S., Lippel, K. (2008).  But “two-handed" scientists are using only one hand now”. (Letter)  American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 51(10), 797-798.

Premji, S., Messing, K., Lippel, K. (2008). Broken English, broken bones? Mechanisms linking language proficiency and occupational health in a Montreal garment factory. International Journal of Health Services, 38(1), 1-19. 

Premji, S., Bertrand, F., Smargiassi, A., Daniel, M. (2007). Socio-economic correlates of municipal level pollution emissions on Montreal Island. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 98(2), 138-42.