By Yewon Na
Willamette University ’22
Environmental Science & Public Health Major

In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I have had the opportunity to work as a student researcher for the Oregon Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (OR-FACE) team under Dr. Ryan Olson’s lab of the Occupational Health Sciences department at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). My primary role has consisted of surveillance work, inputting potential occupational injury and fatality cases onto a database with alerts from various governmental agencies, including Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Oregon Emergency Response System (OERS), Oregon State Police (OSP), and other news media outlets.

As a fourth-year student at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, studying Public Health and Environmental Science as my majors, this position has been a great learning opportunity to gain real work experience in occupational health and to develop my data entry and management skills through surveillance work. Not only has this position allowed me to build organizational skills while working with injury and fatality data, but also to gain knowledge of the different occupational hazards and causes of fatality and injury workers in Oregon experience directly through the surveillance work and from other researchers on the team.

How I first encountered O[yes] is through my position with OR-FACE as well. As a young worker myself, I wanted to learn about what the coalition has been focusing on, as well as the different ongoing projects working to acknowledge and bring solutions to young workers’ concerns about safety and health. The opportunity to join an O[yes] meeting has allowed me to hear student workers’ concerns, especially in regard to their circumstances affected by the pandemic, as well as how O[yes] plans to address those concerns.

Through my position within the OR-FACE team, I hope to contribute to the work of improving the safety and health of workers, especially for those who may lack the necessary resources to keep themselves safe. I am excited to continue learning more about the work of the O[yes] coalition and hopefully be able to take part in improving the safety and lives of young workers across Oregon.

If you are interested in learning more about the research and work produced by the OR-FACE team, visit at https://www.ohsu.edu/oregon-fatality-assessment-control-evaluation.  

Interested in joining or learning more about O[yes]? Contact us.