Safety Matters, a one-hour educational program, can raise the workplace safety and health knowledge and attitude scores for young workers (aged 15 to 24), new research has found. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) highlighted the new findings in the July edition of its eNews online newsletter.
Young workers are injured at higher rates than adults, according to the institute, as they typically enter the workforce unprepared for the hazards they may face. The free Safety Matters program was developed by NIOSH and the American Industrial Hygiene Association to raise workers’ safety awareness.
Researchers from NIOSH; the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; EMSTAR Research, Inc.; and Synergy America conducted a preliminary evaluation of Safety Matters’ effectiveness in positively changing workplace safety and health knowledge and attitude scores, testing a sample of 283 high school-aged youth in Colorado. Train-the-trainer sessions prepared volunteer safety and health professionals to deliver the Safety Matters program and conduct assessments immediately before and upon program completion.
Safe + Sound, heat safety campaigns
In the July eNews, NIOSH also announced plans for this year’s Safe + Sound Week (August 12–18) campaign to promote workplace safety and health programs that include management leadership, worker participation, and a systematic approach to finding and fixing workplace hazards. Information and registration are available at https://www.osha.gov/safeandsoundweek.
NIOSH and its partners also plan to launch a social media campaign on July 15 to share information on heat safety at work. Employer resources and information for protecting themselves and their employees from extreme heat will be available from NIOSH’s Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts.
An Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposal for a standard for heat illness prevention in outdoor and indoor work settings is undergoing regulatory review at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board approved a state indoor heat standard on June 20.
NIOSH Director John Howard, MD, announced the institute is working with other Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) centers and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists to create recommendations and standards for collecting data on the impact of work on health inequities and public health. Howard wrote in his “From the Director’s Desk” column that work may improve or aggravate health disparities and inequities, which can impact workers, their families, and their communities.
Howard pointed out that the components of work—employment status, occupation and industry, and working conditions—may affect workers’ mental and physical health.
According to Howard, standardized data collection is critical to understanding how work functions as a social determinant of health to improve workers’ lives. Good data on work and health may help researchers fully understand how work affects social, economic, and health circumstances.
The institute also announced the National Academies’ publication of the proceedings from a NIOSH-sponsored workshop on using reusable healthcare textiles in personal protective equipment (PPE) in healthcare settings. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed vulnerabilities in healthcare systems’ ability to ensure healthcare workers had adequate access to PPE during surges in demand.
During the pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to reuse decontaminated filtering facepiece respirators in response to PPE shortages.