142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

303864
Evaluating Telephone Outreach in Enrolling Former Department of Energy Workers in a Free Medical Screening Program

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Monday, November 17, 2014

Jessica Krieger, B.A. , Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, Flushing, NY
Jonathan Corbin, MPH , Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, Flushing, NY
Daniel Schooler, M.A. , Center for Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, Flushing, NY
Jennifer Imasuen, BA , Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, Flushing, NY
Lewis Pepper, MD, MPH , Environmental Health, Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, Flushing, NY
Background: We will evaluate the effectiveness of telephone outreach for the enrollment of former Department of Energy (DOE) workers in an occupational medical screening program. DOE workers face increased health risks due to hazardous exposures during employment. This analysis will be conducted at one site of the Worker Health Protection Program (WHPP), a medical screening program for DOE workers that has screened over 30,000 participants from 13 different locations through 2013.

Methods: 1,000 former DOE Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers who have not been screened by WHPP will be sent a notification and screening invitation letter and program brochure.  500 randomly selected workers will also receive a scripted follow-up telephone call by program staff within two to five weeks following the mailing.   

Results: We will analyze program enrollment rates of the group who receive telephone calls and the group who receive mailings only. Using preliminary data collected from routine program outreach to 186 workers, we found that 14 participants (7.5%) enrolled in the program following mailings only and an additional 12 enrolled after receiving follow-up phone calls, roughly adding 46% to the total (26) yield of respondents.    

Conclusions:  We expect that telephone follow-up phone calls will be an effective supplemental tool to improve recruitment and completion of medical screening exams. We will detail our approach to telephone outreach, taking into account program staff’s time and labor, and explore how our efforts may be generalizable to outreach initiatives for other medical screening programs.

Learning Areas:

Communication and informatics
Occupational health and safety

Learning Objectives:
Evaluate the effectiveness of telephone outreach for the enrollment of former Department of Energy workers in an occupational medical screening program.

Keyword(s): Occupational Health and Safety, Health Promotion and Education

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I work as a Research Assistant for the Worker Health Protection Program, a medical screening program for former Department of Energy workers. Part of my responsibilities include implementation of outreach approaches in the recruitment of former DOE workers. The effectiveness of telephone outreach evaluated in this presentation used enrollment data from the medical screening program.
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.

Back to: 3308.0: Interesting OHS Topics I