Project A: Integrated Approaches to Improving the Health and Safety of Health Care Workers

Summary

While most of the research on integrated approaches of occupational health and safety and worksite health promotion to date has focused on manufacturing settings, employment is shifting to the service sector. Within this sector, health care employs over 12 million workers, and is the second fastest growing industry in the U.S. economy. In contrast to workers in other industries, rates of occupational injuries and illnesses among health care workers have increased over the past decade. The purpose of this study is to lay the foundation for integrated interventions in health care through examination of the associations of worker health outcomes and risks on and off the job with work policies and practices and to address the prevalent issues of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), particularly low back pain disability (LBPD), and health promotions through physical activity among patient care workers. The specific aims of this study are:

1. To estimate the efficacy and determine the feasibility of an integrated intervention, addressing both health protection and health promotion in order to reduce MSD symptoms and improve health behaviors among healthcare workers. We will assess between-group differences in MSD symptoms, health behaviors, including physical activity, and a set of secondary outcomes, including unplanned absence, reported injuries, worker compensation claims and costs, turnover and retention, intention to leave the job, and work-role function. This study will explore the working hypothesis that: Workers employed at baseline in patient-care units receiving the intervention will report greater reductions in their MSD symptoms (primary outcome) and greater improvements in health behaviors, compared with workers employed at baseline in units assigned to the Usual Care control group.
2. To determine the factors in the work environment which contribute over time to reductions in MSD symptoms and improvements in safe and healthy behaviors. (1) The work environment, work organization, and psychosocial factors, measured in our current study, will be associated with changes in workers' health behaviors and health outcomes between the assessments in the current and proposed studies; (2) Improvements in the work environment over time will be associated with improvements in workers' health behaviors and health outcomes. We will conduct multilevel modeling analysis to evaluate the simultaneous effects of worker-level and unit-level factors on MSD symptoms and safety and health behaviors.

Conditions

• Health Behavior
• Sleep
• MSDs
• Dietary Habits
• Physical Activity

Interventions

OTHER

Be Well Work Well

The intervention follows principles for integrated approaches to promoting and protecting worker health. It will occur on 4 inpatient units at Massachusetts General Hospital beginning in January 2013, and will continue for 1 year. Overall intervention objectives: 1. Motivate individual staff members to engage in targeted health and safety behavior changes; 2. build awareness of ergonomic and safety hazards and of opportunities for healthy dietary choices and physical activity; 3. facilitate unit-level norms supportive of breaks, safe patient handling, and targeted health and safety behaviors; and 4. promote co-worker and supervisor support for targeted health and safety behaviors.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

  collaborator OTHER

• Partners HealthCare

  collaborator OTHER

• Brigham and Women's Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• Massachusetts General Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• Boston University

  collaborator OTHER

• Carelon Research

  collaborator OTHER

• Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH · Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-04-30

Primary Completion

2014-06-30

Completion

2014-06-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations