BME undergrad studies health risks faced by Maryland nail salon workers
Biomedical engineering senior Kevin Nguyen, who grew up watching family members work in nail salons, is studying the occupational health hazards within the salon environment. With support from a Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) Award, Nguyen’s project, “Beyond the Polish: Assessing Occupational Health Concerns and Intervention Needs of Nail Salon Workers in Maryland,” will explore how personal, environmental, and structural factors influence health protective practices among nail technicians.
Since 1993, PURA grants have been awarded for students to conduct original research, some results of which have been published in professional journals or presented at academic conferences. Funded through donations from the Hodson Trust, these awards are an important part of the university’s mission and its commitment to research opportunities for undergraduates.
Under the guidance of Emily Agree, a research professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and Trân Huỳnh, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota, Nguyen will conduct a qualitative research study of workers in Maryland nail salons. Through interviews, he aims to gather data on the personal, environmental, and structural factors that contribute to health risks and prevent workplace safety improvements. Nguyen’s goal is to develop a community-based intervention to help nail salon workers access resources to address health concerns caused by their work environment.
Nguyen described the project as highly interdisciplinary, involving collaboration with environmental engineers, public health leaders, sociologists, and community leaders.
“By gathering diverse perspectives, I gained valuable and unique insights. I envision that a solution will involve an intervention integrating elements from all these areas,” Nguyen said.
While the study involves work with experts in multiple disciplines, Nguyen sees it as an essential step on his journey to be a biomedical engineer.
“As biomedical engineers, we are presented with health challenges that require us to innovate, design, and develop solutions. Through this qualitative research study, I’ll be immersing myself in the nail salon workers’ lived experiences, understanding how they navigate their environment and face challenges. This process is key to user-centric design, which prioritizes the user’s perspective and needs. In the future, having this understanding will help me in designing biomedical interventions that are practical, effective, and tailored to the specific needs of the patients they serve,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen spent last summer studying anti-cancer drugs at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle under Steven Henikoff, a professor in the Basic Sciences Division there. He was particularly inspired by the innovations he saw in Henikoff’s lab, especially the suite of genome profiling tools which allowed him to study the genomic effects of these drugs at a high resolution, a significant improvement from existing methods.
“This reinforced the biomedical engineer mindset in me: if the tools needed to address our research question do not exist, it is both our responsibility and within our skillset to design and create them,” Nguyen said.