Total Worker Health® Intervention for Construction Workers Alters Safety, Health, Well-Being Measures

Anger, W. Kent; Kyler-Yano, Jason; Vaughn, Katie; Wipfli, Bradley; Olson, Ryan; Blanco, Magali N.

doi:10.1097/jom.0000000000001290

Cited by 31 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…A final comment is that the nature of the pandemic, affecting society as a whole, seems to be helping to push through change management, acceptance, and adoption of change at a much faster rate than normally experienced with construction health and safety initiatives. While research has established the link between taking work‐related safety back to home life (Anger et al, 2018; Fleming, 2001), this may be an example of safety in the home (and wider society) taking safety into the workplace.…”

Section: Observation 1: Managing Covid‐19 Risk In Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID‐19 on health and safety in the construction sector

Stiles

Golightly

Ryan

2021

Hum Ftrs & Erg Mfg Svc

101

120

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Construction has been significantly affected by COVID‐19 yet is critical to the post‐COVID economic recovery. Specifically, construction needs to be constantly aware of safety and risk balanced with timely project delivery. Guidance for COVID‐19 must therefore be implemented in a way that reflects working practice and pressures. There is, however, a potential knowledge gap regarding the practical feasibility and impact of applying COVID‐19 measures within construction, made more difficult by factors such as the temporary nature of projects and complex working arrangements. This article presents a commentary on safe construction during, and beyond, COVID‐19, covering the human factors challenges and practicalities of implementing COVID‐19 measures. We observe that while guidance is strong on risk management, understanding of how best to implement this guidance is not yet stable. Also, care must be taken that implementing guidance does not detract from general safety, which is also challenged by increased pressures on delivery arising from COVID‐19. There may, however, be opportunities for safer working practice arising from new awareness of health, hygiene, and safety risk. The role of safety leadership is overlooked in guidance yet is vital to ensure safe application of COVID‐19 working practices. The key message is that COVID‐19 needs to be integrated and promoted within a general risk management approach, in part because this takes account of differing priorities regarding safety risks, rather than overly focussing on COVID‐19, and also because the effectiveness of COVID‐19 mitigations can be amplified by integration with pre‐existing safety processes.

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Section: Observation 1: Managing Covid‐19 Risk In Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID‐19 on health and safety in the construction sector

Stiles

Golightly

Ryan

2021

Hum Ftrs & Erg Mfg Svc

101

120

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“…Our program evaluation results indicated that leaders were commonly working on foundational goals related to TWH policy and program development that may need time to implement [ 22 ]. In contrast to our intervention, most other TWH-related and safety-specific intervention studies that include leadership focus on supervisors and changes in outcomes amongst their teams within a few weeks or months with mixed findings [ 12 , 13 , 15 , 16 , 18 , 19 , 43 – 46 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Our research, and that of others, suggests that small business owners and other senior leaders are a key target audience for interventions as their actions are significantly related to business and employee TWH practices [ 27 – 30 ]. While TWH interventions with leadership components hold promise as methods to change organizational behavior with ultimate effects on workforce outcomes [ 16 , 18 ], the interventions have been traditionally focused on supervisor level leadership behaviors. Supervisors are key to the implementation of the TWH approach on a day-to-day basis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small + Safe + Well: lessons learned from a Total Worker Health® randomized intervention to promote organizational change in small business

et al. 2022

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Background Leadership commitment to worker safety and health is one of the most important factors when organizations develop and implement a Total Worker Health® approach. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of a Total Worker Health (“TWH”) leadership development program that targeted owners and other senior-level leadership positions on changing organizational and worker outcomes from baseline to one-year later. Methods The Small + Safe + Well study included small businesses from a variety of industries in the state of Colorado, USA that were participating in Health Links™. We designed a randomized waitlisted control comparison design (RCT) to evaluate the added benefit of a TWH leadership development program. An employer assessment tool was used to assess TWH policies and programs, and an employee health and safety survey was used to assess safety leadership and health leadership practices, safety climate and health climate, safety behaviors and health behaviors, and well-being. We used a linear mixed model framework with random effects for business and employee to assess the impact of intervention on the outcomes of interest. Results Thirty-six businesses (37% retention) and 250 employees (9% retention) met the RCT study inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. Businesses improved their TWH policies and programs score from baseline to one-year later, regardless of leadership intervention group assignment. Neither intervention group demonstrated improvements in employee-reported outcomes. Conclusions This study sought to address a gap in the literature regarding small business senior leadership development for TWH. Our study demonstrates many of the challenges of conducting studies focused on organizational change in workplaces, specifically in small businesses. When designing TWH intervention studies, researchers should consider how to best engage small business leaders in interventions and implementations early on, as well as methods that are well matched to measuring primary and secondary outcomes longitudinally. Future research is needed to test the feasibility and sustainability of TWH interventions in small business. Trial registration The trial was retrospectively registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (ID U19OH011227).

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“…Research supports the potential of integrated workplace approaches to improve worker health, safety, and well-being by addressing overlapping risk factors [43,44,45]. While evaluating the impacts of TWH framework is an emerging field, several studies have shown that TWH interventions can effectively address injuries and chronic diseases in specific worker populations [46,47,48,49,50]. While the current study did not evaluate specific integrated TWH interventions or programs, in our 2016 survey we found that only 15.6% of worksites reported a coordinated program for occupational health and safety with health promotion (data not shown).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Workplace Health and Safety Strategies, Trends, and Barriers through a Statewide Worksite Survey

Sedani

Stover

Coyle

et al. 2019

IJERPH

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Chronic diseases have added to the economic burden of the U.S. healthcare system. Most Americans spend most of their waking time at work, thereby, presenting employers with an opportunity to protect and promote health. The purpose of this study was to assess the implementation of workplace health governance and safety strategies among worksites in the State of Nebraska, over time and by industry sector using a randomized survey. Weighted percentages were compared by year, industry sector, and worksite size. Over the three study periods, 4784 responses were collected from worksite representatives. Adoption of workplace health governance and planning strategies increased over time and significantly varied across industry sector groups. Organizational safety policies varied by industry sector and were more commonly reported than workplace health governance and planning strategies. Time constraints were the most common barrier among worksites of all sizes, and stress was reported as the leading employee health issue that negatively impacts business. Results suggest that opportunities exist to integrate workplace health and safety initiatives, especially in blue-collar industry sectors and small businesses.

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Total Worker Health® Intervention for Construction Workers Alters Safety, Health, Well-Being Measures

Abstract: A TWH intervention tailored for construction crews can simultaneously improve safety, health, and well-being.

Cited by 31 publications

References 38 publications

Impact of COVID‐19 on health and safety in the construction sector

Impact of COVID‐19 on health and safety in the construction sector

Small + Safe + Well: lessons learned from a Total Worker Health® randomized intervention to promote organizational change in small business

Assessing Workplace Health and Safety Strategies, Trends, and Barriers through a Statewide Worksite Survey

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