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

Abstract #116860

Paul A. Shoemaker, MPH¹, John Shea, MS¹, Jack Tracy¹, Paul Nally², Leon Bethune, MPH¹, and Rogers Swartz³. (1) Office of Environmental Health, Boston Public Health Commission, 1010 Massachusetts Avenue, 2nd Floor, Boston, MA 02118, (617) 534-5966, paul_shoemaker@bphc.org, (2) Boston Inspectional Services Department, 1010 Massachusetts Avenue, 5th floor, Boston, MA 02118, (3) Boston Public Health Commission, Community Initiatives Bureau, 1010 Massachusetts Avenue, 2nd floor, Boston, MA 02118

More than 800 small automotive repair and servicing businesses are located within Boston's residential neighborhoods. These businesses provide a valuable source of employment and needed services to city residents, but too often pose a risk to their workers and neighbors through operator ignorance of safety requirements and the numerous hazardous materials and processes they use. Previous worker and owner assistance efforts by the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) and other city agencies have had inadequate success in preventing shop closure because of a limited ability to connect shops with resources and distraction from the educational messages caused by the inspection process. Similarly, independent efforts by community organizations to improve shop practices to protect employees and the environment have met with mixed results due to the difficulty of gaining access to shops and their employees and motivating owners to spend money for improvements. The BPHC's Safe Shops program melds both efforts to take the best of each - combining the ability of regulatory agencies to gain access to the shops and require corrective action with the resources of the community partners to provide training from a less stressful source and connection with financial resources to make improvements to the business. In the Safe Shops program, multi-agency enforcement inspections and correction orders collect evaluation data and provide incentives for behavior change. The education sessions and one-on-one technical/financial assistance provided through the community partners give shop owners and employees the knowledge and resources necessary to make changes that preserve valued businesses, jobs, and services.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the presentation, the participants will

• Be able to identify the key components of a successful partnership between community organizations and public agencies to promote public health
• Be able to describe the process by which the environmental health intervention project for auto shops evloved from isolated complaint-based inspections to a collaborative prevention project and policy development process

Keywords: Collaboration, Occupational Exposure

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