268299 Connecting with construction contractors: Active dissemination of nail gun safety materials

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Pietra Check, MPH , National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Washington, DC
Mansi Das, MPH, MBA , NIOSH, CDC, Cincinnati, OH
Matthew Gillen, CIH , National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Washington, DC
Christine Branche, PhD, FACE , National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Washington, DC
Nail guns are widely used on many construction jobs–especially in residential construction. Nail gun injuries are common and result in approximately 37,000 emergency room visits each year. A compelling body of research has identified the risk factors that make nail gun injuries more likely to occur. To make the findings of this research readily accessible to residential construction contractors, NIOSH and OSHA jointly published the document Nail Gun Safety: A Guide for Construction Contractors in September 2011. The Guide summarizes the research findings to support contractors in making informed decisions about nail gun use on their job sites and outlines six steps that contractors can take to ensure the safety of their workers. This presentation describes active dissemination efforts taken to increase the document's reach, and their evaluation. Personalized direct outreach to key stakeholders helped make sure their constituents were exposed to the document. Social media was used to broaden NIOSH's reach among industry and safety and health audiences. Seven messages were released through Twitter following the document launch; this provided the biggest source of traffic to the document on the NIOSH website. More than 15,000 print copies have been distributed and almost half of all visits to the document webpage resulted in a document download. Having a trans-disciplinary dissemination team comprising industrial hygienists, researchers, occupational safety and health leaders, health communication specialists, and others proved essential to developing an effective dissemination plan that used multiple channels to reach residential construction contractors, trade associations, and safety and health professionals.

Learning Areas:
Communication and informatics
Occupational health and safety

Learning Objectives:
1. Discuss strategies for active dissemination of safety and health materials for construction contractors. 2. Describe methods for integrating social media with traditional media in the communications mix. 3. Discuss lessons learned about what NIOSH and OSHA expected and didn’t expect in their active dissemination endeavor. 4. Assess the impact of various dissemination strategies using evaluation metrics.

Keywords: Occupational Safety, Communication

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been a health communication specialist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for over 5 years and have gained training and expertise in research translation and plain language communication for lay audiences. I was intimately involved in the writing, design, dissemination, and evaluation of the product discussed in the abstract.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.