Hazard Communication in a Large U.S. Manufacturing Firm: The Ecology of Health Education in the Workplace

Abstract

This article describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a workplace health and safety education program intended to bring a large U.S. manufacturing firm into compliance with a Federal regulation, the Hazard Communication Standard. The methods of program delivery and levels of resources allocated were decided by local plant management and union representatives resulting in marked variations among the five plants studied. These differences in program delivery were associated with differ ences in employee assessment of the training's usefulness, changes in employee work practices, working conditions, and organizational handling of health and safety prob lems. In all five plants, the program evidenced indirect beneficial effects on the use of hazard control measures and organizational approaches to health and safety issues which went beyond the requirements of the federal Standard. The results appear well- explained by an ecological model which views health and disease as outcomes of a complex system of interactions between the individual worker and multiple levels of environmental influences. Implications of these findings for health educators are discussed.