A worksite health education training session to reduce risk of exposure to bloodborne diseases

Health workers risk exposure to a variety of bloodborne pathogens, including Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS. This study examined the effectiveness of a health education training session on safe laboratory practices to eliminate or minimize employee exposure to bloodborne pathogens. Health workers (n = 185) at The Public Health Laboratory of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene attended a 60-minute interactive training session conducted at the workplace that provided information on bloodborne pathogen exposures and transmissions, establishing a safe work environment, and barriers to safe work practices. The training session provided factual information to participants regarding the OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, handouts, games and exercises. A pre-post survey design was used to assess changes in workers' knowledge before and after training. Scores improved significantly(p < 0.001 in paired t-test) from pre-training (71%) to post-training (94%). While our results demonstrate that the training curriculum achieved desired goals for improved knowledge, routine training sessions and/or evaluations are warranted to maintain knowledge over time.