Janitors are a growing population that are low-wage, low-status, and face high rates of occupational injury. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the national rate of nonfatal occupational injury and illness involving days away from work for ‘Janitors and Cleaners…’ in 2017 was 231.0 per 10,000 full-time workers, more than twice that of ‘All Occupations’ (98.0). Previous research has identified risk factors including excessive workload. In 2018, the Washington State (WA) Legislature funded the Washington State Janitorial Workload Study (JWS) to quantify physical demands, assess safety and health needs, and identify potential risk factors in the janitorial workforce. JWS brings together stakeholders including policymakers, the business community, and labor (Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 6-Seattle).

JWS includes multiple components, and two will be discussed here, a telephone survey and injured-worker interviews. Janitorial workers are a hard to reach population, so multiple methods will be used to identify the population: records from the WA Department of Employment Security, workers’ compensation (WC) claims, and through SEIU-6.

The telephone survey will be conducted out of an estimated 5,000 eligible janitors statewide. Injured-worker interviews will be conducted with workers who file workers' compensation claims (expected n=35-50). Results will identify major tasks performed, percent time doing tasks and difficulty level with tasks/tools/methods, identify psychosocial risk factors, assess individual safety climate perceptions, and identify chemical and physical hazards.

The study builds on previous work and its components are designed to assess how the physical and psychosocial environment, tasks, technologies/tools/methods, work organization factors, duration, and exposures combine to influence Janitors' health and safety. The results of the study can be used to identify potential solutions, generate prevention and training materials, more efficiently conduct outreach, and inform policy.