How to engage small retail businesses in workplace violence prevention: Perspectives from small businesses and influential organizations.

Background: Small retail businesses experience high robbery and violent crime rates leading to injury and death. Workplace violence prevention programs (WVPP) based on Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design reduce this risk, but low small business participation limits their effectiveness. Recent dissemination models of occupational safety and health information recommend collaborating with an intermediary organization to engage small businesses.

Methods: Qualitative interviews with 70 small business operators and 32 representatives of organizations with small business influence were conducted to identify factors and recommendations for improving dissemination of a WVPP.

Results: Both study groups recommended promoting WVPPs through personal contacts but differed on other promotion methods and the type of influential groups to target. Small business operators indicated few connections to formal business networks.

Conclusions: Dissemination of WVPPs to small businesses may require models inclusive of influential individuals (e.g., respected business owners) as intermediaries to reach small businesses with few formal connections.