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Rosemary K. Sokas, MD, MOH
University of Illinois
Chicago, Illinois
Ph: (312)355-4497
Email: sokas@uic.edu
Abstract:
This is a Pilot Intervention Project. The main objectives are to evaluate trainees who have completed the Smart Mark training program to determine whether impact on knowledge, attitudes and self-reported practices are statistically significant and lasting. In addition, the project will explore the feasibility of assessing most recent job safety climate and three-month self-reported hazard, illness and injury information.
Smart Mark is a hazard-awareness curriculum for the OSHA 10- and 30- hour training program for the members of Building Trades unions. The unionized construction industry uses approximately 4000 instructors in joint labor-management training programs at over 2,000 training centers nationwide. Smart Mark hazard-awareness training is frequently incorporated into the apprenticeship (or pre-apprenticeship) programs of building trades, and is presented differently to apprentices and to journeymen, and has been used to train nearly 200,000 workers.
CPWR, and its subcontractor, the UIC School of Public Health, will work with United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada , and the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, to conduct process evaluation of Smart Mark 10 hour training for pre-apprentices, and journeymen in the Chicago training centers. 140 trainees from each of the two centers will then be recruited into an IRB-approved protocol to obtain interviewer-administered baseline and follow up information (at 3 and at 18 months) on knowledge, attitudes, practices, most-recent job safety climate, and self-reported illness and injury rates. Because of anticipated attrition, the total sample size is anticipated to be 200. Exploratory analyses will examine differences between trades, between various levels of training, and from baseline to follow up, in order to determine future sample size needs and critical factors.
Construction remains among the most hazardous of occupations, and both industry and labor are currently expending significant resources to provide training. Examination of the significant effects of the training may help to revise, expand, or otherwise improve both training programs and the measurement of their effects. |
