Oral

Students from the Occupational Health Internship Program (OHIP) will report on their projects with unions and worker centers from 2008, the fifth year of the program. Pairs of undergraduate and graduate students collaborated for eight weeks over the summer with a group of workers to identify and investigate a worksite problem and develop recommendations. Each team will report on how they involved workers in formulating the scope of the project, what they learned from worker interviews and worksite visits, and describe the final health education product they developed to assist workers in future efforts to protect their health on the job. Some of the proposed projects likely to be reporting are projects with immigrant (largely Latino) worker populations. This may include hotel room cleaners concerned about ergonomic hazards and exposure to toxic cleaning products, worker and community exposure to diesel fumes related to port activities, multiple hazards faced by day laborers in southern California, and workplace violence issues among health care workers.

Session Objectives: Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to: * Identify the three goals of student-worker collaborative research to address workplace hazards. * Describe the benefits of pairing students and workers on projects who share a common language or culture. * Articulate how participatory research projects can help motivate public health students to enter the field of occupational safety and health. * Name the limitations of summer projects to effect long-term public health changes.

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing