Evaluating a Total Worker Health training for young workers: generalizability and durability.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Rohlman D
• Description:
  There are many benefits to employment for young workers, including increased self-esteem, autonomy, responsibility, and the development of job skills as well as bringing in income (Baron, 2005). However, young workers (under age 25) have limited job experience and often engage in unsafe, risky behaviors. Several factors that increase young workers' risk of injury have been identified, including hazards found in the workplace (e.g., knives, ladders), perceived workload (e.g., pressure to complete work more quickly), and minority status. Young workers, particularly those in their first job, may be at greater risk because of lack of training and skills that may make them less likely to recognize hazards, speak up regarding safety concerns, and less aware of their legal rights as workers (Estes, Jackson, & Castillo, 2010). Injury and illness are not the only risks to teenage workers. A study of high school students found that working 20 hours or more a week during the school year was associated with higher levels of emotional distress, more substance abuse, and earlier onset of sexual activity than experienced by students working less than 20 hours a week or not at all (Teixeira, Fischer, Nagai, & Turte, 2004). Several studies have shown that working adolescents wake up earlier, have a shorter nocturnal sleep duration, and a higher level of sleepiness during wake time during the week than nonworking students (Teixeira, Fischer, & Lowden, 2006). Although many protections are in place for adolescent workers through regulation of hours of employment and limiting contact with dangerous machinery and hazardous exposures, the non-fatal injury rate in young workers is twice the rate of older workers (Estes et al., 2010). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) developed the Youth@Work: Talking Safety curriculum to address the needs of young workers. This classroom-based training addresses hazard identification and control, emergencies at work, rights and responsibilities, and communication. Promoting U through Safety and Health (PUSH) expanded the content of the Youth@Work curriculum to include information addressing health, safety, and communication in an online format (Rohlman et al., 2016). Total Worker Health® is a strategy that integrates health promotion with injury prevention. Interventions addressing TWH improve workplace health effectively and more rapidly than wellness programs focused only on health promotion (Anger et al., 2015). Occupational training is designed to protect workers from hazards in the workplace. Employers are required to provide workers with a safe workplace through training and personal protective equipment; job tasks should be carefully assigned based on physical capabilities and age, and supervised to ensure proper performance. However, approximately half of young workers report receiving no safety education (Chin et al., 2010) and no studies have evaluated durability, retention or training effectiveness in younger workers. PUSH was found to be effective in increasing the safety and health knowledge among young adults working as lifeguards in a parks and recreation department, although this initial increase in knowledge did not remain at follow-up three months later (Rohlman, Parish, Elliot, Hanson, & Perrin, 2016). To examine generalizability, the training was evaluated among food service workers and young workers working in a range of industries recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). A similar increase in knowledge was found immediately after the training was completed, followed by a decrease at follow-up. However, the majority of both the MTurk and parks and recreation participants reported liking the training content and the format. An open-ended question at follow-up was used to assess if the PUSH training prepared them to handle situations at work. Thirty percent provided an example of how the training increased awareness or changed their behavior. Several specifically indicated being more willing to speak-up about safety. In addition, during 2014 to 2016, new seasonal workers in a parks and recreation program completed the training. This cohort was followed each year to examine the duration of knowledge and impact of training on behavior; data analysis examining retention of knowledge and changes in attitudes and behaviors is in progress. These findings demonstrate that the PUSH training was effective in increasing the safety and health knowledge among young workers from different backgrounds. Although knowledge increases were not maintained at follow-up, young workers reported liking the training and several provided examples of how the training changed their awareness of safety and health hazards or their behaviors at work. Although employers are tasked with providing safety training to their employees, such training is not always well accepted or appropriately designed to reflect the needs of a young audience new to the workplace. Additionally, scientific research and practical experience demonstrates that comprehensive practices and policies that take into account the work environment while also addressing the personal health of individuals, are more effective in preventing disease and promoting health and safety than adopting separate approaches. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Adolescent Hazardous Substances Occupational Health Safety Staff Development Workplace
• Keywords:
  TWH; Total Worker Health; Work environment; Worker safety; Young workers; Hazard recognition; Adolescents; Training
• Publisher:
  American Psychological Association
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Iowa ; OSHA Region 7
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  322-323
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20065897
• Citation:
  Work, Stress and Health 2019, November 6-9, 2019, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2019 Nov; :322-323
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2020
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction ; Services
• Performing Organization:
  University of Iowa
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20060901
• Source Full Name:
  Work, Stress and Health 2019, November 6-9, 2019, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• End Date:
  20260831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9899275a8bdbdbf5e1feb2b45fcc03151404a0cb5282230eb5088ed1b64cadef501f1e93997d3facaddbf77413d4badf569b047728584463d794bebfdba6c182
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/249592/cdc_249592_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 113.67 KB ]