Harassment Study Of Transit Workers Compromised, Researchers Say

BROOKLYN, NY — Researchers from New York University have officially retracted a study they published in August that said 89 percent of transit workers had faced harassment or assault of some kind while on the job in New York City.

In the study, researchers surveyed 1,297 public-facing transit workers who were thought, at the time, to all be New York City-based transit workers.

But, researchers continued to analyze the data after the study was published by the Journal of Urban Health and found that numerous survey responses came from outside of the New York metropolitan area and that there were a few discrepancies in the responses.

"The researchers also learned that, unbeknownst to them, an unauthorized link to the survey—which was designed to be emailed directly to transit workers—had been posted to a public-facing social media site," NYU Spokesperson Rachel Harrison said.

"The researchers concluded—based on the survey’s vulnerability to responses from bots and/or people other than the intended recipients—that their data were compromised."

Now, the group of researchers is asking the Journal of Urban Health to retract the study and is notifying the research oversight board at NYU and the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study, Harrison said.

“The researchers take this matter very seriously, as do the University and the School of Global Public Health," Harrison said.

Before the study was discovered to be compromised, the study's authors said they found that almost half of all workers surveyed said they experienced verbal harassment or physical assault and that one in five said they experienced theft while on the job between 2020 and 2024 in NYC.

"We hope that providing evidence of the harassment and violence that workers face can lead to better data on transit worker safety and improved policies protecting this vital workforce,” Robyn Gershon, clinical professor of epidemiology at the NYU School of Global Public Health and the study’s senior author, said when the study was first published in August before she was found to be flawed.

Shortly after the results of the survey were published, the NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said in a letter to NYU's president that the study lacked the quality assurance typically expected of NYU.

"Even combining all of those assaulted and harassed during the first seven months of the year over the last four years adds up to 5,422 employees. That’s just over 11% of NYCT’s workforce — a far cry from the authors' claims," Crichlow wrote at the time.

This article has been updated with a quote from the NYCT president. For questions and tips, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.