Occupational health internship program (OHIP): Ten years on – still shaping the future of OHS

Workers continue to face many health and safety (H&S) problems, yet the current H&S workforce is aging and the number of new professionals entering the field has diminished. Now in its tenth year, the Occupational Health Internship Program (OHIP) has attempted to help rectify this problem.

Each summer, a pair of students is assigned to a union, worker center, or community group in one of OHIP's seven locations. The host organization identifies a specific H&S concern of their members, and the students interact directly with the workers and their leaders, observing the working conditions and investigating a health and safety problem.

The project typically includes key informant interviews, surveys, focus groups, and literature reviews. Each project results in a “giveback product” that helps the workers and the organization to address their H&S issue.

The interns include both undergraduate and graduate students, only some of whom are already in a H&S-related academic program. Many of past years' students have found OHIP to be a life-changing experience, and have gone into the field of H&S. A panel of OHIP students will present their 2013 projects. Last year's presentations included: the impact of Cal/OSHA's outdoor heat illness prevention standard on contingent workers; H&S conditions among workers in the warehouse industry; and chemical and radiologic exposures of retired workers at a DOE gaseous diffusion plant.

Presenters will describe how they involved workers in formulating their project, summarize their findings and recommendations, and describe the health education product that they provided to their host group.