Search

Graduates of industrial hygiene training (IH) programs must be able to meet continuously evolving health and safety needs in a wide variety of occupational settings. Therefore, academic IH graduate programs must regularly evaluate their curricula and solicit input from industry professionals to make curricular changes that will better prepare their students for professional roles in industry. The purpose of this study was to identify the training gaps that existed between industry needs and the current curriculum for a United States-accredited IH graduate training program. The research team facilitated two group interviews with the IH program advisory board, collected alumni survey data, and performed a qualitative analysis to identify skills gaps/needs for the IH Program graduates. The research team identified 3 themes from participant interviews and alumni surveys (technical, applied, and essential skills) and selected several skills within each theme that interview participants thought were necessary proficiencies for junior IH professionals. The skills identified in the qualitative interview and survey data can be incorporated into the curriculum to improve the training of IH graduate students. Additionally, by using qualitative analysis, the researchers uncovered essential skills previously unidentified in IH needs assessments, providing valuable information for all IH graduate programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Emotional exhaustion (EE)-the first stage of burnout-is related to preventable work environment exposures. We examined the understudied impact of organizational support for safety (OSS) and safety hazards (SH) on EE in a mixed licensed and unlicensed population of healthcare workers (HCWs). Methods: A work environment exposures survey was conducted in five US public healthcare facilities in 2018-2019. A total of 1059 questionnaires were collected from a predominantly female population of mixed HCWs. Results: Mean EE scores were higher among women, direct care workers, and younger subjects. In linear regression models, EE was positively associated with SH, emotional labor, psychological demands, physical demands, job strain, assault, and negative acts, while OSS was negatively associated. Safety hazard s both mediated and moderated the relationship between OSS and EE. Conclusions: When perception of SH is high, OSS has less impact on reducing EE, suggesting a need to effectively put safety policies to practice for improving EE in HCWS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study aims to extend safety climate research by considering perceptions across the following three hierarchical levels within a workplace: (1) senior leaders/executives, (2) field leaders/supervisors, and (3) front-line employees. Methods: We conducted a quantitative survey study at a US utility company where we collected data related to safety climate perceptions and employee-reported safety behaviors across the different levels of organizational hierarchy. Results: The findings revealed the highest safety climate scores among senior leaders/executives, followed by field leaders/supervisors, and then employees, suggesting potential discrepancies between espoused and enacted safety values in the workplace. Conclusions: These results suggest that supervisors and top managers may have different mental models of workplace safety compared with employees. Consequently, assessing perceptions at different organizational levels provides a fuller picture of safety in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent data reveal an increase in the likelihood of staff injury for those working in the health care and social assistance industries (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Without information summarizing variables pertaining to staff injury in behavior‐analytic service settings, organizational leaders risk the safety of staff they employ. Despite the social relevance, few studies concerning the types of client‐related staff injuries have been published. The purpose of this survey was to gather data on the cause, type, bodily location of, and treatment required for staff injury by surveying organizations that serve individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Respondents ranked the leading cause of injury as client‐to‐staff interactions, type of injury as bite, location of injury as arm, and the most common treatment required as on‐site first aid. These initial data could assist in the identification of job tasks that may be associated with increased risk of injury, potential ramifications of client‐inflicted injuries on staff performance and organizational outcomes, and how to address injuries in settings within an injury‐prone industry. Implications and future research ideas are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed how hospitalists frame workplace safety, health, and well-being (SHW); their perception of hospital supports for SHW; and whether and how they are sharing leadership responsibility for each other's SHW. Our findings highlight the important role of local support for hospitalist SHW and reveal the systemic, hospital-wide problems that may impede their SHW. We believe that positioning hospitalists as leaders for SHW will result in systems-wide changes in practices to support the SHW of all care team members. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S2):S162–S166. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307573) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study looked at the experiences of social work, occupational therapy, and nursing students who participated in an interprofessional simulation that was offered virtually due to the impact of COVID-19. The simulation was a one-day event that introduced advanced care planning to the students through an IPE team approach and incorporated various learning and teaching modalities. Using conventional content analysis of the post-program survey data from 255 students (35 occupational therapy; 87 social work; and 133 nursing), three primary themes were identified for the value of learning virtual interprofessional collaboration during a pandemic: (1) catalyst for telehealth education; (2) patient, family & professional safety; and (3) connection and continuity of care. In addition, students identified four primary themes that were learned and perceptions of what could lie ahead beyond the simulation: (1) patient & family convenience and inclusion; (2) expand interprofessional team involvement; (3) alleviate disparities/increase access; and (4) the "new normal" of virtual IP Collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study examined the occupational health and safety (OHS) issues that impact environmental public health workforces across various health departments in the U.S. The objective was to generate an OHS risk profile for the workforce to inform future preventative strategies. Data for our study were collected via a cross-sectional online survey (N = 158) supplemented by a virtual focus group (N = 7) discussion to confirm and explore some of the themes and data items that emerged from the survey. Descriptive statistics were used to provide information about the variables in the data sets and to identify relationships between them. Nonparametric tests were used to determine statistical significance between two or more variables that were not normally distributed. Focus group data were analyzed thematically. Our study indicates that the environmental health (EH) workforce in the U.S. is exposed to a range of significant workplace hazards. Some of the OHS concerns identified in our study are similar to those observed in Australia and New Zealand. Biological and chemical exposures appear to be important hazards; however, further study is required to determine the nature and mechanism of these hazards within the EH workforce. Furthermore, our study suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the health and safety of EH professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]