Health and safety of Working students: Report from pilot study

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Health and safety of Working students Report
from pilot study

• Kathryn Woodcock, PhD, PEng
• Occupational and Public Health
• Maurice Mazerolle, PhD
• Business Management

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Causal model of young worker injury
The goal of this research is to validate and
determine the weights of the paths in the model
so that interventions may focus on more important
causal paths.
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Background to this report

• Intent of study
• Test feasibility of methods
• Improve statistical estimation of sample size
  requirement to develop multi-factor model
• RAC funded as pilot study
• Limitations
• Pilot not designed to generalize results beyond
  sample
• Findings do suggest areas for further evaluation

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Young workers 1524

• Policy and research priority 10-15 youth
  fatalities/year in Ontario almost 16,000 lost
  time injury claims per year.
• Age-based work restrictions largely stop at 18
• Pronounced differences between 15 and 24 year
  olds
• Large proportion of university students must
  work, yet they may have little more work
  experience than high school aged workers
• Youth information intended for high school
  audience (but products actually seem to speak to
  parents in tone and content)
• Most youth involvement in program development is
  participatory rather than self-directed
  nature youth input guided by elders

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Student involvement

• Project philosophy learn how students themselves
  define the problem and determine solutions for
  workplace health and safety
• Course project politics and public
  administration worked on survey incorporating
  faculty needs. (approved by Research Ethics
  Board)
• Paid Ryerson Business Consulting Service students
  to administer surveys in Summer 2002, enter data
  and produce preliminary analyses
• Student research assistant for participant-observa
  tion aborted

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Pilot findings

• Sample characteristics
• Performing unsafe work
• Factors potentially influencing unsafe work
• Invincibility
• Hazard knowledge
• Rights knowledge
• Hazardous work inherent to the job
• Injury experience

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Most respondents (55) were under 25, but the age
distribution allows some age-based comparisons.
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Workplaces
Most respondents worked in business and services
, therefore no inter-sector comparisons were
possible.
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Have you performed an unsafe work task (N179)
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(No Transcript)
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Risk perception
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Invincibility beliefs

• Respondents who reported having performed an
  unsafe work task were asked for their reason. An
  explanation of being personally strong, quick, or
  resistant, or being usually pretty lucky was
  classified as an expression of invincibility.

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Invincibility beliefs?

• Invincibility and risk perception appear to be
  alternate reasoning strategies, not components of
  the same strategy. Those perceive injury as
  impossible do not need to feel invincible, and
  vice versa.

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Estimated likelihood ( agreeing)

• Contrary to usual beliefs about youth and safety
  training, more of those older than 25 and with
  OHS training rated injury/disease as impossible
  than those without training and younger. (Not
  statistically significant, but opposite direction
  from conventional wisdom.)
• The proportion who rated injury/disease quite
  possible/likely was not much different between
  older/younger respondents

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Hazard knowledge

• 79/181 had received no OHS training
• Only 67/102 had received OHS training from the
  current employer

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Factors affecting training received

• Overall 56.4 had received some training at some
  workplace however this was influenced by
  unionization and existence of OHS committee.
  Older students were more likely to work in
  larger, unionized workplaces and unionized
  workplaces were more likely to have OHS
  committees.
• Students working in smaller workplaces (lt20
  employees) were less likely to have safety
  training (plt.0001)

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Other sources of hazard knowledge
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Rights knowledge

• Recall reasons presented earlier by those who
  reported performing unsafe work (N57)
• 21 (37.5) said that they were unaware that they
  could refuse unsafe work.
• However
• 30 (52.6) feared or were threatened with
  dismissal if they refused
• Rights beliefs are as important as rights
  knowledge, and beliefs must match reality
• Students cannot afford to gamble on rights that
  may be merely theoretical ?

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Students cant afford job loss
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Sources of rights knowledge
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Reporting access to a safety committee
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Injury experience ()

• No association with gender, age, existence of
  safety committee, or workplace size.
• Relationship with training is counter-intuitive.
• PILOT LIMITATIONAlthough a greater proportion
  of those who had OHS training had injuries than
  those without training, the sequence of training
  and injury is unknown. Training may have been
  given in response to injury or at a later time
  for some reason.

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Age affects training-injury relation?

• Different association between training and injury
  when examining older and younger workers
  separately.
• PILOT LIMITATION may be related to sample
  size/rate however further study is required.
• OHS training approaches have changed over the
  years.

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Do young workers have more injuries?
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Qualitative methodsObservations and results

• Student group leadership is more charismatic than
  bureaucratic, thus priorities are volatile.
  Commitment is contingent on individuals, but is
  no less sincere.
• Delay of 16 months from proposal to receipt of
  funds (20 months from original planning
  discussions)
• Student film crew remained available
• Original RWSC student leaders were no longer
  involved
• Student organization (RyeSAC) priorities changed.
• The video action research was not possible.
• RECOMMENDED Grants involving partnerships with
  youth organizations must be adjudicated and
  awarded on a fast track to capture enthusiasm and
  commitment before individuals change.
• Working students deal with health and safety
  concerns interstitially while conducting other
  business. They do not tend to make special trips
  to pursue information.
• Ryerson relocated RWSC to location where drop-in
  traffic was negligible
• Participant-observer had nothing to observe.

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Acknowledgements

• Sponsored by Ontario Workplace Safety Insurance
  Board Research Advisory Council Solutions for
  Workplace Change program, Ryerson University
  Faculty of Community Services and Faculty of
  Business SRC programs, and Ontario Work-Study
  Program.
• The cooperation of RyeSAC, the Ryerson Working
  Students Centre and the assistance of the
  students in PPA 553 (Prof. Myer Siemiatycki) and
  Ryerson Business Consulting Service is gratefully
  acknowledged.