Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116602

Christopher J. Jewell, PhD, JD¹, Dale Rose, MSc¹, and Lisa A. Bero, PhD². (1) Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 420, San Francisco, CA 94118, (415) 502-7593, cjewell@itsa.ucsf.edu, (2) Institute for Health Policy Studies, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Calfiornia, San Francisco, Box 0936, Laurel Heights, San Francisco, CA 94143-0936

Notice and comment provisions in agency rulemaking procedures are one of the most important methods for fostering accountability in an unelected branch of government. Yet few studies have examined in detail who participates in this process and what types of information they provide. California state OSHA developed and implemented in 1997 an ergonomics standard. This rule then provides a case for examining the role of public participation in occupational health policy. Based on a stratified, random sample of the public commentary received by Cal-OSHA during its ergonomics rule making process, we examined participant affiliations and performed content analysis on their submissions using inductively derived categories. Industry representatives made up by far the largest share of submissions followed by labor organizations who had less than half as many participants. Business groups focused on the lack of a scientific and a legal basis for an ergonomics standard as well as the projected high costs to employers. They cited a variety of scientific articles, economic data and legal cases to support their positions. Labor organizations emphasized the extent to which cumulative trauma disorders affected their members and the costs to employees of these injuries. For evidence they discussed government studies of injury prevalence, surveys of their members as well as the individual stories of injured workers. Business groups presented a disproportionate amount of the evidence in the process Thus, the dominant participants in the public commentary period were business, raising questions about whether public commentary is fulfilling its purported “democratic accountability” purpose.

Learning Objectives:

• To identify which “publics” participate in the regulatory process; to describe the issues on which different groups focus as well as the distinctive kinds evidence they employ to promote their viewpoints.

Keywords: Ergonomics, Policy/Policy Development

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation