141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

281003
Promoting young worker health and safety through outreach to primary care clinicians

Monday, November 4, 2013 : 1:34 PM - 1:50 PM

Laura Stock, MPH , Labor Occupational Health Program, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Diane Bush, MPH , Labor Occupational Health Program, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Background: Adolescents are at high risk for work-related injury due to employment in high hazard industries, inexperience, lack of training, and fear of speaking up. One way to reach young workers is through their health care providers. Reaching out to clinicians is challenging because providers do not tend to think of teen patients as workers. Providers focus on commonly recognized risk factors such as drugs, sexual activity, bicycle safety, etc. Questions about work are rarely included in standard intake questionnaires, despite the fact that 150,000 teens are injured on the job each year. Objective: To describe a project to promote greater engagement by adolescent primary care providers in efforts to address work-related injuries and illnesses among their patients. Methods: 1) Needs assessment with clinicians to identify barriers, current practices and needed materials, and systems and strategies to integrate occupational health information into their clinical practices; 2) Development and pilot testing of a tool kit providing resources and guidance for talking about these issues with patients; 3) Outreach to primary care facilities, including Northern CA Kaiser and community clinics, to disseminate materials and resources. Conclusions: Clinicians have an important role to play in delivering information about workplace health and safety as well as in determining whether work is impacting the overall health and well-being of their patients. Providers are more likely to address these issues if questions about work are incorporated into required intake forms and electronic records and educational resources are integrated into existing health education programs and systems.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Occupational health and safety
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Provision of health care to the public

Learning Objectives:
Describe role that clinicians can play in promoting teen worker health and safety. Identify barriers and strategies for enhancing engagement in this issue among health care providers.

Keywords: Adolescent Health, Occupational Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have worked in the field of occupational health education for over 25 years and coordinated numerous projects assessing occupational health needs and designing effective intervention programs.
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.