1. Miriam Weil, MPH, ScD Work Environment
Policy UMASS Lowell
*Funding for this project was provided by NIOSH through the
Harvard ERC and by the National Science Foundation
UMASS
Lowell
12/12/2011

2. Research
Ques+on
— How can the internet help provide timely and useful
health and safety information to people working with
chemicals around academic laboratories?
— Hypothesis: For web-based chemical hazard
information to be useful to researchers and workers
at universities, it must be embedded so that action
can be taken to reduce or
prevent exposures.
UMASS
Lowell
12/12/2011

3. What is Embeddedness?
— Three elements determine whether a message is
“embedded” in the users’ decision-making process:
— Relevance: pertinent to user decisions.
— Compatibility: with the user’s language and
‘socioeconomic’ or workplace culture.
— Accessibility : easily found and consistent with the
conventional patterns for finding information.
— Source: Fung Graham and Weil, 2007
3

4. Par+cipants
— Subjects:
— Students (17)
— Laboratory Staff (18)
— Sites:
— UMASS Lowell
— Harvard University
UMASS
Lowell
12/12/2011

5. Method:
Exercise
Format
Four parts to the experiment:
1. Pre-test- Background questions
2. Ethylene Glycol hypothetical question
3. Acetonitrile hypothetical question
4. Exit interview
For 2 and 3 : Rate the relevance, compatibility,
accessibility of each website towards pursuing the
problem using a 5 point rating scale: where 1 is worst
and 5 is best
5

6. Exercise
Format
Rate the relevance, compatibility, accessibility of
each website towards pursuing the problem using
the following rating scale:
— 1 Disagree strongly
— 2 Disagree
— 3 Neither agree nor disagree
— 4 Agree
— 5 Agree strongly
UMASS
Lowell
12/12/2011

7. Websites
in
the
Study
ATSDR
Google
Tox
Town
ICSC
NJ
RTK
EWG
CHE
U.S.
Govt.
-­‐
Publically
U.S.
Govt.
Intl.
State
of
NGO:
Env.
NGO
:
Centers
for
Held
National
Agencies:
New
Working
Collab.
for
Disease
Company
Library
UNEP,
ILO
Jersey
Group
-­‐
Health
Control
of
Dept
of
Research,
and
Env.
–
Medicine
Heath
and
Advocacy
Research,
Senior
Advocacy
Services
UMASS
Lowell
12/12/2011

8. Average Website Ratings
Results:
Average
Website
Ra1ngs
Relevance
Compatibility
Accessibility
8

9. Rela+onships
between
ra+ngs
and
sbetween
Relationships tated
ratings and stated
inten+on
too
revisit
intentions
t revisit
Controlling for work
status and web
searching history. *
indicates
Measured occurrence:
significant
An increase of at
0.05
level
1=increase in revisit.
9

10. The
Google
Effect
— Google is the default.
— May not find best information.
— Lab culture requires speed.
— Miss other valuable sites
10

11. Findings/Conclusions
— Criteria
rankings
influenced
favorable
choices.
— ATSDR,
NJ
and
ICSC
rated
highly.
— The
internet
can
provide
helpful
and
useful
informa+on.
— Chemical
safety
sites
require
useful
content
and
a
high
Google
ranking
11