California's COVID-19 Workplace Outreach Project (CWOP): Evaluating strategies to improve knowledge and behavioral outcomes among low-income workers

Behavior Change and Communication

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To mitigate the spread of COVID-19, California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) created the California COVID-19 Workplace Outreach Project (CWOP). CWOP aims to educate low-wage workers in industries that were disproportionately affected by the pandemic, to increase their knowledge about how to prevent the spread and mitigate the harm of COVID-19, as well as to build awareness and understanding of workplace safety laws, paid sick leave rights, and other COVID-19 related labor laws. CWOP also provides referrals and information about how to get vaccinated, seek assistance with enforcement of COVID-19 worker protections, and get access to public benefits.

Our project leverages behavioral science insights and rigorous research methods to identify what outreach strategies are most effective at improving knowledge and behavioral practices of low-wage workers who are most vulnerable due to COVID-19 and other public health threats. It will test various outreach strategies within a subset of CBOs, varying the content delivered and who delivers those messages. This project will enhance our understanding of how outreach strategies can be tailored for groups that are often hard-to-reach, or most vulnerable to being overlooked by the status quo. Implementation of this project will be carried out in close partnership with certain CBOs, thereby allowing for real-world measurement of outcomes before the scaling up of targeted strategies across a wider set of contexts and populations.

Findings from this project will be used to inform program evaluation across a more diverse set of populations and geographies. In addition, the evaluation has the potential to inform decisions around similar projects that rely on “trusted messengers” to deliver critical information to hard-to-reach populations across California.