Application of a model for delivering occupational safety and health to smaller businesses: Case studies from the US.

Smaller firms are the majority in every industry in the US, and they endure a greater burden of occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities than larger firms. Smaller firms often lack the necessary resources for effective occupational safety and health activities, and many require external assistance with safety and health programming. Based on previous work by researchers in Europe and New Zealand, NIOSH researchers developed for occupational safety and health intervention in small businesses.

Safety activities in small businesses.

Background: Workplace injuries occur at higher rates in smaller firms than in larger firms, and the number of workplace safety activities appear to be inversely associated with those rates. Predictors of safety activities are rarely studied.

Methods: This study uses data from a national random survey of firms ( = 722) with less than 250 employees conducted in 2002.

A model for occupational safety and health intervention diffusion to small businesses.

Background: Smaller businesses differ from their larger counterparts in having higher rates of occupational injuries and illnesses and fewer resources for preventing those losses. Intervention models developed outside the United States have addressed the resource deficiency issue by incorporating intermediary organizations such as trade associations.

Methods: This paper extends previous models by using exchange theory and by borrowing from the diffusion of innovations model.

Partnerships for environmental and occupational justice: contributions to research, capacity and public health.

In 1994, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) initiated a program to address communication gaps between community residents, researchers and health care providers in the context of disproportionate environmental exposures. Over 13 years, together with the Environmental Protection Agency and National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, NIEHS funded 54 environmental justice projects. Here we examine the methods used and outcomes produced based on data gathered from summaries submitted for annual grantees' meetings.

Evaluation of a safety training program in three food service companies.

Problem: Outcome measures for safety training effectiveness research often do not include measures such as occupational injury experience. Effectiveness mediators also receive sparse attention.

Method: A new safety training curriculum was delivered to workers in a stratified random sample of food service facilities across three companies.

Prevalence of safer needle devices and factors associated with their adoption: results of a national hospital survey.

Objectives: In this study, we collected and analyzed the first data available on the extent of the adoption of safer needle devices (engineered sharps injury protections [ESIPs]) by U.S. hospitals and on the degree to which selected factors influence the use of this technology.