Natasha Eliya
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Marie-Anne Rosemberg
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Department of Systems, Populations, and Leadership / Nursing
Program:
Authors: Natasha Eliya, Joseph Tu
Session: Session 3: 11:00 am – 11: 50 am
Poster: 87
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic heightened xenophobia in the US, especially targeting Asian-Americans. Hotel workers, affected by the tourism sector’s shutdown and fearing infection from guests, faced heightened stress, potentially leading to increased substance use as a coping mechanism. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between xenophobia due to COVID-19 and substance use among hotel workers in Michigan. This investigation is part of the quantitative arm of a larger mixed methods sequential design project. Hotel workers in Michigan were recruited online and via local unions to complete surveys. Within this battery, the COVID-19 Stress Scales (CSS) and Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10) were used to capture xenophobia and substance use behavior, respectively. We recruited 571 participants, 50% of whom are female and 72% of whom are White. Only the Traumatic Stress Scale of the CSS demonstrated a small, positive correlation with substance use (r = 0.10), while the Xenophobia and other scales of the CSS demonstrated no correlation. While these results suggest potential need to account for COVID-19 trauma in addressing substance use, this smaller effect implies further research is necessary to understand the contributions of other social determinants of health on the well being of hospitality workers.
