Small+Safe+Well: A Longitudinal Study of TWH in Small Business

Summary

Workers in small businesses bear a disproportionate burden of occupational fatalities, illnesses, and injuries. The investigators conducted an intervention research project to determine how an intervention at the organizational level modifies business Total Worker Health (TWH) practices, safety climate, and health climate. In turn, the investigators aimed to determine whether organizational TWH adoption impacts individual workers' lifestyle health outcomes. In addition, the investigators also evaluated the use of the RE-AIM public health impact evaluation framework in the small business setting, with the intention of improving generalizability, maintenance, and dissemination of interventions and of guiding future TWH intervention design for both research and practice. The investigators conducted a lagged randomized controlled trial (L-RCT) to determine how different doses of an organizational-level TWH intervention (Health Links vs. Health Links + TWH Leadership Training) resulted in improvement and maintenance of TWH programming and organizational climates for safety and health, in small enterprises, over 36 months. The investigators also evaluated whether it resulted in improvements in workforce lifestyle health risks. In the short and mid-term, the goals and outputs of this project is a greater understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of TWH interventions and a model to test the implementation of the TWH interventions as well as an improvement the ability of TWH researchers and practitioners to apply this knowledge to TWH intervention design, implementation and evaluation to ensure generalizability. The long-term goal of this project is to impact worker safety, health and well-being through the continued use of these principles in small businesses.

Conditions

• Life Style

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Health Links + Leadership Training

Help businesses undergo transactional (i.e., business management practices) and transformational (i.e., business leadership and culture) change. Transactional change component: Health Links is an existing community-based intervention that seeks to help businesses - especially small and medium-sized businesses - incorporate Total Worker Health (TWH) programming into their business practices through assessment, advising, and certification. There is evidence that this consultation intervention is effective at helping businesses develop and implement policies and programs.Transformational change component: The experimental arm includes TWH leadership training for small business owners and other senior leaders. This is a three-month training that includes assessments, in-person training, and virtual training transfer activities. The goal is to help the leader understand their organization's current approach to TWH, identify areas for improvement, and to take action.

BEHAVIORAL

Health Links

Health Links is an existing community-based intervention that seeks to help businesses - especially small and medium-sized businesses - create a culture of both safety and health. Health Links does this by helping businesses incorporate Total Worker Health (TWH) programming into their business practices through assessment, advising, and certification. There is evidence that this consultation intervention is effective at helping businesses develop and implement policies and programs.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH/CDC)

  collaborator FED

• Colorado School of Public Health

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lee Newman, MA MA · Colorado School of Public Health

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

SEQUENTIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-04-01

Primary Completion

2020-05-01

Completion

2020-05-01

Countries

• United States

Study Locations