Occupational Health Internship Program (OHIP): Eleven years on – still shaping the future of OHS

Workers continue to face many health and safety (H&S) problems, yet the current workforce is aging and the number of new professionals entering the field is diminishing. The Occupational Health Internship Program (OHIP) is actively working to ensure that there is an infusion of young, mult-ethnic activists entering our field. More than half of working OHIP alumni have remained in OHS or a related field and are making an impact through their research, teaching, and patient care. Others have gone into other professions positively influenced by their OHIP experiences.

Since 2004, pairs of interns with diverse technical, language, and cultural skills are placed with a host union or community group each summer. Interns include undergraduate and graduate students, only some of whom are in H&S-related academic programs. Teams investigate H&S concerns of workers, often of new immigrant groups, employed in underserved or high hazard jobs at one of OHIP's training sites. Interns interact directly with workers and organization leaders, observe working conditions, and provide a “give-back” product that helps address H&S issues.

A panel of OHIP interns will present their 2014 projects. Last year's presentations included: assessment of workplace H&S issues of Paleteros, examination of injured workers returning to work and opioid dependency, investigation of ergonomic injury prevention interventions for hotel housekeepers, and investigation of workplace violence prevention in healthcare.

Presenters will describe how they involved workers in formulating their project, summarize their findings and recommendations, and describe the health education product that they provided to their host organization.