Can half-day trainings motivate small contractors to address lead safety?
There is a real need to educate small painting and remodeling contractors about lead-safe work practices to protect the health of occupants (especially small children) and employees. From 1996 to 2000, 34 half-day lead awareness trainings were held throughout California to increase contractors' use of lead-safe practices. Educational methods included focusing on best practices, utilizing a peer educator, and working with stakeholders to do outreach to this hard-to-reach audience. We report on the evaluation of 18 of these seminars where we found that 30% to 49% of the interviewed contractors began doing many of the lead-safe work practices after attendance. We conclude that this program can have a modest impact in areas that contractors are more familiar with; new areas not part of their experience do not fare as well. However, without a more integrated public health educational and enforcement strategy, educational efforts such as ours can have only a limited impact.
Harrington
David
D
Occupational Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, Occupational Health Branch, California Department of Health Services in Oakland, California 94612, USA. dharring@dhs.ca.gov
Scholz
Peter
P
Lomax
Geoffrey
G
Stahlschmidt
Hans
H
Vannoy
Jim
J
Materna
Barbara
B
D002140:California; D003132:Commerce; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training / Q000379:methods*; D007855:Lead Poisoning / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009042:Motivation; D016272:Occupational Health; D010379:Peer Group; D015397:Program Evaluation