Eco Health is a youth-led public health initiative working with informal waste workers in Faridabad, Haryana, India to improve occupational health and safety. Our project addresses the high burden of work-related injuries, poor access to personal protective equipment (PPE), limited health awareness, and inadequate healthcare access among an underserved workforce. Rather than beginning with PPE distribution, we first conducted formative qualitative research to understand workers’ lived experiences, occupational hazards, hygiene practices, barriers to PPE use, and healthcare-seeking behaviour. These insights are guiding the design of a community-centred intervention tailored to local needs. The initiative combines four key components: community assessment, provision of appropriate PPE, occupational health education, and follow-up monitoring to encourage sustained adoption of safe practices. We also strengthen linkages with existing government health services to improve access to care. By placing waste workers’ voices at the centre of intervention design, Eco Health aims to develop a practical, evidence-based, and scalable model that enhances workers’ health, safety, and dignity while contributing to healthier and more sustainable communities.
Although our initiative is in the early implementation phase, it has already generated important evidence to guide an effective and sustainable intervention. We completed formative qualitative research through six semi-structured interviews with seven informal waste workers in Faridabad, identifying key occupational hazards, hygiene practices, barriers to PPE use, healthcare access gaps, and intervention preferences. These findings directly informed the redesign of our intervention, including the selection of lightweight, climate-appropriate PPE and the development of easy-to-understand health education materials. We have successfully engaged an underserved and difficult-to-reach community, building trust and ensuring that waste workers’ perspectives shape every stage of the project. The initiative has also established a practical implementation framework combining community assessment, PPE distribution, health education, and follow-up monitoring to promote sustained behaviour change. Resources developed to date include qualitative interview tools, thematic analysis, educational materials, and an implementation strategy that can be adapted by other organisations. By project completion, we expect to reach at least 100 additional waste workers with occupational health education and PPE, while generating evidence that can support replication and scale-up in other communities.
Project information correct as of September 2026