1. Well Worker Grid
May 7, 2015
Christine Anzur and Michele Hanigan
MA Students
Jamie Mazza, Sabina Aliverdi, and Markee Shamblin
Undergraduate Students
2. Why the Well Worker Grid is needed
What is the Well Worker Grid?
Project Aims
What We’ve Done
Final Product
Future Directions
Overview
3. The “Well” refers here to the idea that if a
worker is safe, he or she is healthy and
can be said to be “well”
The “Well” in Well Worker Grid
4. Why the Well Worker Grid is Needed
The process of gathering safety information is
fragmented
Different occupations come with different
occupational hazards, and these hazards may
vary across locations
Consistency of safety materials
5. What is the Well Worker Grid?
A place for NIOSH representatives and
stakeholders to enter and retrieve personalized
safety materials
The database will provide safety and health
literature that is customized to the workers’
occupation, reading level, and even their marital
or family status
6. Aims of the Grid
Generate messages that are tailored to a
specific audience
Tailoring messages to one’s specific audience
has been shown to maximize effectiveness of
safety messages1,2
Primary aim is to improve worker safety
7. Communication is Essential
The Grid is not just an information generation tool -
it’s a communication generation tool
A communication-based approach can enhance the
effectiveness of safety literature3
8. Taken the first steps in gathering information for
the Grid
Created questions based on suggestions from
NIOSH as well as additional sources1,2
Gathered information from tree trimmers,
volunteer firefighters, and stand-alone
healthcare facilities
What We’ve Done
9. Final Product
The Grid is dynamic
No real “end” to this project
Continuous updates will keep the Grid
relevant and functional
12. Continue populating the grid
Create the database
Encourage NIOSH employees to populate the
grid
Future Directions
13. Overall, the Well Worker Grid is a unique tool
that has the potential to improve working
conditions and even save lives
Targeting safety messages to employees
increases their effectiveness and the likelihood
that the employees will begin to use safe
behavior
Review
14. 1. Hastall, M. R., & Knobloch-Westerwick, S. (2013). Severity, efficacy, and
evidence type as determinants of health message exposure. Health
Communication, 28, 378-388. doi:10.1080/10410236.2012.690175
2. Odugleh-Kolev, A. (2014). What will it take to move risk communication into
the twenty-first century? Journal Of Communication In Healthcare, 7, 242-
245. doi:10.1179/1753807614Y.0000000066
3. Kreps, G., Neuhauser, L. (2010). New directions in eHealth communication:
Opportunities and challenges. Patient Education and Counseling, 78, 329-
336. doi: doi:10.1016/j.pec.2010.01.013
References
Your notes: The process of gathering safety information is currently fragmented. There is no cohesive database where people can easily find safety information that is targeted to a specific occupation and those employees in particular.
1. Ex. When reporting on categories of workers, subcategories of worker groups with especially high rates may be swallowed up in the representation for the total of the group (Using averages manages to ignore outliers such as truckers who have an average time-off for injury/death of six times the ‘parent’ category of transportation)
2. Having a database enumerating common causes for injuries and death for each group, separate from the umbrella under which it falls, would aid in development and dissemination of specific prevention materials. Furthermore, different regions may face different occupational hazards even in the same occupation. (Palm fronds are a problem for tree trimmers in warmer climates with palm trees such as california and florida, not a problem in West Viriginia, thus the safety materials would benefit from the specificity offered by the well worker grid)
3. Use of one specific database for resources for generating safety products may be more streamlined and offer the most up to date research for informing the products used along with the MOST appropriate message (message is key – this is a communication tool, not just informational)
The database will provide safety and health literature that is customized to the workers’ occupation, reading level, and even their marital or family status.
The biggest takeaway here is that it’s not just an information generation tool—it’s a communication generation tool. We are generating messages that are tailored to a specific audience, which has been shown to maximize the effectiveness of these safety messages (Odugleh-Kolev, 2014).
Our hope for the WellWorker grid is that these tailored messages will help improve worker safety.
The biggest takeaway here is that it’s not just an information generation tool—it’s a communication generation tool. We are generating messages that are tailored to a specific audience, which has been shown to maximize the effectiveness of these safety messages (Odugleh-Kolev, 2014).
This semester, we created questions based on suggestions from NIOSH as well as additional sources (Elliot, 2014; Hastall & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2013). We chose to ask about information that, based on our research, seemed to be significant influences on employees’ safety behaviors. After creating our questions, we gave them to the other three groups and asked them to include our questions in their focus groups. In this way, we were able to gather information quickly from tree trimmers, firefighters, and standalone healthcare facilities.
