Evaluations of worker notification interventions often focus on their effectiveness as a form of communication to individual workers, with controlled experiment being the preferred research design. While useful, this approach leaves unexamined some important social processes that potentially influence the notification's public health impact over time. To explore long-term impact issues, we used ethnographic methods for qualitative assessment of a community-based worker notification and screening program carried out by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Augusta, GA, during the early 1980s. Lengthy taped interviews were conducted with 70 members of the notified cohort (chemical workers, primarily low-income and African American, who had been occupationally exposed to the bladder carcinogen beta-naphthylamine); 32 members of their families; and 18 stakeholders representing major community institutions and interest groups involved in the original notification. We found the interviewed workers to be extremely positive about the NIOSH notification. A decade or more after receiving the risk information, they remembered the message content and felt it was important. However, for non-obvious and unanticipated reasons, most had failed to implement the health advice emphasized in the notification -- i.e., to be screened annually for bladder cancer. Our findings on their reasons for not seeking followup screening suggest several ways that the long-term public health benefits of current worker notifications might be substantially increased, at relatively low cost.
Learning Objectives: l. To clarify the difference between evaluating a risk communication's impact versus its effectiveness. 2. To describe qualitatively the long-term impact of a specific worker notification. 3. To highlight the study's implications for increasing public health benefits of current worker notifications.
Keywords: Risk Communication, Disease Prevention
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.