Impact of written violence policies in educational settings on risk of physical assault against Minnesota educators

Details

• Personal Author:
  Alexander BH ; Church, Timothy R. ; Feda DM ; Gergerich SG ; McGovern, Patricia M. ; Nachreiner, Nancy M. ; Ryan, Andrew D.
• Description:
  Purpose: Few school violence policies have been studied with quantitative methods to evaluate their impact on workplace violence. This study analyzed nine different written violence policies and their impact on work-related physical assault in educational settings. Methods: Data were obtained from the Minnesota Educators' Study. Of 26,000 licensed educators, randomly selected from the Minnesota Department of Education's database, 6,180 eligible educators were enrolled in the comprehensive study. From this phase, cases (n = 372) who reported physical assaults within the last year, and controls (n = 1116) who did not, were included in the case-control study. Multivariate logistic regression analyses, using Directed Acyclic Graphs, were used to estimate risk of assault. Results: Overall response rates for the full study were: Phase I, 84% (78% full survey); Phase II, 84% (78% full survey). The rate of physical assault per 100 educators per year was 8.3. Results of the adjusted multivariate model indicated decreased risk of physical assault were associated with awareness of policies regarding how to report sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and threat (OR 0.53; 95% CI: 0.30-0.95); assurance of confidential reporting of events (OR 0.67; 95% CI: 0.44-1.04); and zero tolerance for violence (OR 0.70; 95% CI: 0.47-1.04). Conclusions: Awareness of policies, regarding how to report sexual harassment, threats or verbal abuse, assurance of confidential reporting, and zero tolerance for violence, in an educational setting, may help prevent work-related physical assault. This study better informs the quantitative impact that awareness of written violence policies have on physical assault risk. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Behavior Education Epidemiology Men Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Women Workplace
• Keywords:
  Exposure-levels Force Hazards Humans Physical-stress Risk-factors Statistical-analysis Teaching Work-environment Workers
• Publisher:
  American Public Health Association
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Minnesota ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20043823
• Citation:
  APHA 136th Annual Meeting and Exposition, San Diego, California, October 25-29, 2008. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 2008 Oct; :176773
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• Performing Organization:
  University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20040501
• Source Full Name:
  APHA 136th Annual Meeting and Exposition, San Diego, California, October 25-29, 2008
• End Date:
  20080430
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c1efeeed3956dcbdc879f7144909bfa97ec9b15ffcf05a0771d9940f00fbe34e0efe838c4c67367c0d2fb16651cb8643bd2c73ecc728e1a957c069947fc0c002
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/199708/cdc_199708_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 53.24 KB ]