The term environmental education covers a potentially wide range of issues and activities when applied to employees, managers and workplaces. These encompass:

• education for general awareness of environmental concerns
• education and training toward modifying work practices, processes and materials to reduce the environmental impact of industrial processes on local communities
• professional education for engineers and others seeking expertise and careers in environmental fields
• education and training of workers in the growing field of environmental abatement, including hazardous waste cleanup, emergency response to spills, releases and other accidents, and asbestos and lead paint remediation.

This article focuses on the state of worker training and education in the United States in the growing environmental remediation field. It is not an exhaustive treatment of environmental education, but rather an illustration of the link between occupational safety and health and the environment and of the changing nature of work in which technical and scientific knowledge has become increasingly important in such traditional “manual” trades as construction. “Training” refers in this context to shorter-term programmes organized and taught by both academic and non-academic institutions. “Education” refers to programmes of formal study at accredited two-year and four-year institutions. Currently a clear career path does not exist for individuals with interest in this field. The development of more defined career paths is one goal of the National Environmental Education and Training Center, Inc. (NEETC) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, a wide range of education and training programmes exist at different levels, offered by a variety of academic and non-academic institutions. A survey of the institutions involved in this type of training and education formed the source material for the original report from which this article was adapted (Madelien and Paulson 1995).

Training Programmes

A 1990 study conducted by Wayne State University (Powitz et al. 1990) identified 675 separate and distinct noncredit short courses for hazardous waste worker training at colleges and universities, offering over 2,000 courses nationwide each year. However, this study did not cover some of the primary providers of training, namely community college programmes, US Occupational Safety and Health Administration training programmes and independent firms or contractors. Thus, the Wayne State number could probably be doubled or tripled to estimate the number of noncredit, noncertification course offerings available in the United States today.

The major government-funded training programme in environmental remediation is that of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). This program, established under the Superfund legislation in 1987, provides grants to non-profit organizations with access to appropriate worker populations. Recipients include labour unions; university programmes in labour education/labour studies and public health, health sciences and engineering; community colleges; and non-profit-making safety and health coalitions, known as COSH groups (Committees on Occupational Safety and Health). Many of these organizations operate in regional consortia. The target audiences include:

• construction trades workers involved in cleanup of hazardous waste sites
• emergency response personnel working for fire and emergency services agencies and industrial plants
• transportation workers involved in transporting hazardous materials
• hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facility workers
• wastewater treatment workers.

The NIEHS program has resulted in extensive curriculum and materials development and innovation, which has been characterized by considerable sharing and synergy among grantees. The programme funds a national clearinghouse which maintains a library and curriculum centre and publishes a monthly newsletter.

Other government funded programmes offer short courses targeting hazardous waste industry professionals as opposed to front-line remedial workers. Many of these programmes are housed in university Educational Resource Centers funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Education Programmes

Community colleges

The broadest change on the hazardous waste education and training landscape in the past few years is the dramatic development of community college programmes and consortia to improve vocational education at the associate’s degree level. Since the 1980s, community colleges have been doing the most organized and extensive curriculum development work in secondary education.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has funded programmes nationwide to provide for a trained workforce at sites where the need has changed from nuclear technicians to hazardous waste clean-up workers. This training is taking place most rigorously at community colleges, many of which have historically provided for personnel needs at specific DOE sites. DOE-funded programmes at community colleges have also given rise to major efforts in curriculum development and consortia for sharing information. Their goals are to establish more consistent and higher standards of training and to provide mobility for the workforce, enabling an individual trained to work at a site in one part of the country to move to another site with minimal retraining requirements.

Several consortia of community colleges are advancing curricula in this area. The Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE) operates in six regions. PETE is working with the University of Northern Iowa to create a world-class network of community college environmental programmes, linked with high schools, that inform and prepare students for entry into these two-year degree programmes. The goals include the development of (1) nationally validated curriculum models, (2) comprehensive professional development programmes and (3) a national clearinghouse for environmental education.

The Hazardous Materials Training and Research Institute (HMTRI) serves the curriculum development, professional development, print and electronic communications needs of 350 colleges with two-year environmental technologies credit programmes. The Institute develops and distributes curricula and materials and implements educational programmes at its own Environmental Training Center at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa, which has extensive classroom, laboratory and simulated field site facilities.

The Center for Occupational Research and Development (CORD) provides national leadership in the US Department of Education’s Tech Prep/Associate Degree initiative. The Tech Prep program requires coordination between secondary and post-secondary institutions to give students a solid foundation for a career pathway and the world of work. This activity has led to the development of several contextual, experiential student texts in basic science and mathematics, which are designed for students to learn new concepts in relationship to existing knowledge and experience.

CORD has also played a significant role in the Clinton administration’s national educational initiative, “Goals 2000: Educate America”. In recognition of the need for qualified entry-level personnel, the initiative provides for the development of occupational skills standards. (“Skills standards” define the knowledge, skills, attitudes and level of ability necessary to successfully function in specific occupations.) Among the 22 skills standards development projects funded under the programme is one for hazardous materials management technology technicians.

Articulation between vocational and baccalaureate programmes

A continuing problem has been the poor linkage between two-year and four-year institutions, which hampers students who wish to enter engineering programmes after completing associate’s (two-year) degrees in hazardous/radioactive waste management. However, a number of community college consortia have begun to address this problem.

The Environmental Technology (ET) consortium is a California community college network that has completed articulation agreements with four four-year colleges. The establishment of a new job classification, “environmental technician”, by the California Environmental Protection Agency provides added incentive for graduates of the ET program to continue their education. An ET certificate represents the entry level requirement for the environmental technician position. Completion of an associate’s degree makes the employee eligible for promotion to the next job level. Further education and work experience allows the worker to progress up the career ladder.

The Waste-management Education and Research Consortium (WERC), a consortium of New Mexico schools, is perhaps the most advanced model which attempts to bridge gaps between vocational and traditional four-year education. Consortium members are the University of New Mexico, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, New Mexico State University, Navajo Community College, Sandia Laboratory and Los Alamos Laboratories. The approach to curriculum transfer has been an interactive television (ITV) program in distance learning, which takes advantage of the varied strengths of the institutions.

Students enrolled in the environmental programme are required to take 6 hours of courses from the other institutions through distance learning or an offsite semester of coursework. The programme is decidedly inter-disciplinary, combining a minor in hazardous materials/waste management with a major from another department (political science, economics, pre-law, engineering or any of the sciences). The programme is “both broad and narrow” in focus, in that it recognizes a need to develop students with both a broad knowledge base in their field and some specific training in hazardous materials and hazardous waste management. This unique programme couples student participation in realistic applied research and industry-led curriculum development. The courses for the minor are very specific and take advantage of the particularized specialties at each school, but each program, including the associate degree, has a large core requirement in humanities and social sciences.

Another unique feature is the fact that the four-year schools offer two-year associate’s degrees in radioactive and hazardous materials technology. The two-year associate’s degree in environmental science offered at the Navajo Community College includes courses in Navajo history and substantial courses in communications and business, as well as technical courses. A hands-on laboratory has also been developed on the Navajo Community College campus, an unusual feature for a community college and part of the consortium’s commitment to hands-on laboratory learning and technology development/applied research. The WERC member institutions also offer a “non-degree” certificate programme in waste management studies, which seems to be above and beyond the 24-hour and 40-hour courses offered at other colleges. It is for individuals who already have a bachelor’s or graduate degree and who further wish to take advantage of seminars and specialty courses at the universities.

Conclusions

Several significant changes have taken place in the focus of education and training related to the hazardous waste industry in the past few years, in addition to the proliferation of short-course training programmes and traditional engineering programmes. Overall, the Department of Energy seems to have focused education at the community college level on workforce retraining, primarily through the Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE), the Waste-management Education and Research Consortium (WERC) and other consortia like them.

There is a major gap between vocational training and traditional education in the environmental field. Because of this gap, there is not a clear, routine career path for hazardous waste workers, and it is difficult for these workers to advance in industry or government without classic technical degrees. Although inter-departmental options for education at a management level are being established within economics, law and medicine departments which recognize the breadth of the environmental industry, these are still academic-based professional degrees which miss a large part of the available and experienced workforce.

As the environmental clean-up industry matures, the long-term needs of the workforce for more balanced training and education and a well-developed career path become more clear. The large numbers of displaced workers from closed military sites means more people are entering the environmental workforce from other fields, making the demand on union training and placement of displaced workers (both discharged military personnel and displaced civilian personnel) even greater than before. Educational programmes are needed which meet both the needs of personnel entering the industry and of industry itself for a more balanced and better-educated workforce.

Since labour union members are one of the main groups poised to enter the hazardous waste clean-up and environmental remediation field, it would seem that labour studies and industrial relations departments might be logical entities to develop degree programmes that incorporate a hazardous waste/environmental curriculum with development of labour/management skills.

Back

Until very recently the effectiveness of training and education in controlling occupational health and safety hazards was largely a matter of faith rather than systematic evaluation (Vojtecky and Berkanovic 1984-85; Wallerstein and Weinger 1992). With the rapid expansion of intensive federally-funded training and education programmes in the past decade in the United States, this has begun to change. Educators and researchers are applying more rigorous approaches to evaluating the actual impact of worker training and education on outcome variables such as accident, illness and injury rates and on intermediate variables such as the ability of workers to identify, handle and resolve hazards in their workplaces. The programme that combines chemical emergency training as well as hazardous waste training of the International Chemical Workers Union Center for Worker Health and Safety Education provides a useful example of a well-designed programme which has incorporated effective evaluation into its mission.

The Center was established in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1988 under a grant which the International Chemical Workers Union (ICWU) received from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences to provide training for hazardous waste and emergency response workers. The Center is a cooperative venture of six industrial unions, a local occupational health centre and a university environmental health department. It adopted an empowerment education approach to training and defines its mission broadly as:

… promoting worker abilities to solve problems and to develop union-based strategies for improving health and safety conditions at the worksite (McQuiston et al. 1994).

To evaluate the programme’s effectiveness in this mission the Center conducted long-term follow-up studies with the workers who went through the programme. This comprehensive evaluation went considerably beyond the typical assessment which is conducted immediately following training, and measures trainees’ short-term retention of information and satisfaction with (or reaction to) the education.

Programme and Audience

The course that was the subject of evaluation is a four or five-day chemical emergency/hazardous waste training programme. Those attending the courses are members of six industrial unions and a smaller number of management personnel from some of the plants represented by the unions. Workers who are exposed to substantial releases of hazardous substances or who work with hazardous waste less proximately are eligible to attend. Each class is limited to 24 students so as to promote discussion. The Center encourages local unions to send three or four workers from each site to the course, believing that a core group of workers is more likely than an individual to work effectively to reduce hazards when they return to the workplace.

The programme has established interrelated long-term and short-term goals:

Long-term goal: for workers to become and remain active participants in determining and improving the health and safety conditions under which they work.

Immediate educational goal: to provide students with relevant tools, problem-solving skills, and the confidence needed to use those tools (McQuiston et al. 1994).

In keeping with these goals, instead of focusing on information recall, the programme takes a “process oriented” training approach which seeks “to build self-reliance that stresses knowing when additional information is needed, where to find it, and how to interpret and use it.” (McQuiston et al. 1994.)

The curriculum includes both classroom and hands-on training. Instructional methods emphasize small group problem-solving activities with the active participation of the workers in the training. The development of the course also employed a participatory process involving rank-and-file safety and health leaders, programme staff and consultants. This group evaluated initial pilot courses and recommended revisions of the curriculum, materials and methods based on extensive discussions with trainees. This formative evaluation is an important step in the evaluation process that takes place during programme development, not at the end of the programme.

The course introduces the participants to a range of reference documents on hazardous materials. Students also develop a “risk chart” for their own facility during the course, which they use to evaluate their plant’s hazards and safety and health programmes. These charts form the basis for action plans which create a bridge between what the students learn at the course and what they decide needs to be implemented back in the workplace.

Evaluation Methodology

The Center conducts anonymous pre-training and post-training knowledge tests of participants to document increased levels of knowledge. However, to determine the long-term effectiveness of the programme the Center uses telephone follow-up interviews of students 12 months after training. One attendee from each local union is interviewed while every manager attendee is interviewed. The survey measures outcomes in five major areas:

1. students’ ongoing use of resource and reference materials introduced during training
2. the amount of secondary training, that is, training conducted by participants for co-workers back at the worksite following attendance at the Center course
3. trainee attempts and successes in obtaining changes in worksite emergency response or hazardous waste programmes, procedures or equipment
4. post-training improvements in the way spills are handled at the worksite
5. students' perceptions of training programme effectiveness. 

The most recent published results of this evaluation are based on 481 union respondents, each representing a distinct worksite, and 50 management respondents. The response rates to the interviews were 91.9% for union respondents and 61.7% for management.

Results and Implications

Use of resource materials

Of the six major resource materials introduced in the course, all except the risk chart were used by at least 60% of the union and management trainees. The NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards and the Center’s training manual were the most widely used.

Training of co-workers

Almost 80% of the union trainees and 72% of management provided training to co-workers back at the worksite. The average number of co-workers taught (70) and the average length of training (9.7 hours) were substantial. Of special significance was that more than half of the union trainees taught managers at their worksites. Secondary training covered a wide range of topics, including chemical identification, selection and use of personal protective equipment, health effects, emergency response and use of reference materials.

Obtaining worksite improvements

The interviews asked a series of questions related to attempts to improve company programmes, practices and equipment in 11 different areas, including the following seven especially important ones:

• health effects training
• availability of material safety data sheets
• chemical labelling
• respirator availability, testing and training
• gloves and protective clothing
• emergency response
• decontamination procedures.

The questions determined whether respondents felt changes were needed and, if so, whether improvements had been made.

In general, union respondents felt greater need for and attempted more improvements than management, although the degree of difference varied with specific areas. Still fairly high percentages of both unions and management reported attempted improvements in most areas. Success rates over the eleven areas ranged from 44 to 90% for unionists and from 76 to 100% for managers.

Spill response

Questions concerning spills and releases were intended to ascertain whether attendance at the course had changed the way spills were handled. Workers and managers reported a total of 342 serious spills in the year following their training. Around 60% of those reporting spills indicated that the spills were handled differently because of the training. More detailed questions were subsequently added to the survey to collect additional qualitative and quantitative data. The evaluation study provides workers’ comments on specific spills and the role the training played in responding to them. Two examples are quoted below:

Following training the proper equipment was issued. Everything was done by the books. We have come a long way since we formed a team. The training was worthwhile. We don’t have to worry about the company, now we can judge for ourselves what we need.

The training helped by informing the safety committee about the chain of command. We are better prepared and coordination through all departments has improved.

Preparedness

The great majority of union and management respondents felt that they are “much better” or “somewhat better” prepared to handle hazardous chemicals and emergencies as a result of the training.

Conclusion

This case illustrates many of the fundamentals of training and education programme design and evaluation. The goals and objectives of the educational programme are explicitly stated. Social action objectives regarding workers’ ability to think and act for themselves and advocate for systemic changes are prominent along with the more immediate knowledge and behaviour objectives. The training methods are chosen with these objectives in mind. The evaluation methods measure the achievement of these objectives by discovering how the trainees applied the material from the course in their own work environments over the long term. They measure training impact on specific outcomes such as spill response and on intermediate variables such as the extent to which training is passed on to other workers and how course participants use resource materials.

Back

A 1981 study of worker safety and health training in the industrial nations begins by quoting the French writer Victor Hugo: “No cause can succeed without first making education its ally” (Heath 1981). This observation surely still applies to occupational safety and health in the late twentieth century, and is relevant to organization personnel at all levels.

As the workplace becomes increasingly complex, new demands have arisen for greater understanding of the causes and means of prevention of accidents, injuries and illnesses. Government officials, academics, management and labour all have important roles to play in conducting the research that furthers this understanding. The critical next step is the effective transmission of this information to workers, supervisors, managers, government inspectors and safety and health professionals. Although education for occupational physicians and hygienists differs in many respects from the training of workers on the shop floor, there are also common principles that apply to all.

National education and training policies and practices will of course vary according to the economic, political, social, cultural and technological background of the country. In general, industrially advanced nations have proportionally more specialized occupational safety and health practitioners at their disposal than do the developing nations, and more sophisticated education and training programmes are available to these trained workers. More rural and less industrialized nations tend to rely more on “primary health care workers”, who may be worker representatives in factories or fields or health personnel in district health centres. Clearly, training needs and available resources will vary greatly in these situations. However, they all have in common the need for trained practitioners.

This article provides an overview of the most significant issues concerning education and training, including target audiences and their needs, the format and content of effective training and important current trends in the field.

Target Audiences

In 1981, the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health identified the three levels of education required in occupational health, safety and ergonomics as (1) awareness, (2) training for specific needs and (3) specialization. These components are not separate, but rather are part of a continuum; any person may require information on all three levels. The main target groups for basic awareness are legislators, policy makers, managers and workers. Within these categories, many people require additional training in more specific tasks. For example, while all managers should have a basic understanding of the safety and health problems within their areas of responsibility and should know where to go for expert assistance, managers with specific responsibility for safety and health and compliance with regulations may need more intensive training. Similarly, workers who serve as safety delegates or members of safety and health committees need more than awareness training alone, as do government administrators involved in factory inspection and public health functions related to the workplace.

Those doctors, nurses and (especially in rural and developing areas) nonphysician primary health care workers whose primary training or practice does not include occupational medicine will need occupational health education in some depth in order to serve workers, for example by being able to recognize work-related illnesses. Finally, certain professions (for example, engineers, chemists, architects and designers) whose work has considerable impact on workers’ safety and health need much more specific education and training in these areas than they traditionally receive.

Specialists require the most intensive education and training, most often of the kind received in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of study. Physicians, nurses, occupational hygienists, safety engineers and, more recently, ergonomists come under this category. With the rapid ongoing developments in all of these fields, continuing education and on-the-job experience are important components of the education of these professionals.

It is important to emphasize that increasing specialization in the fields of occupational hygiene and safety has taken place without a commensurate emphasis on the interdisciplinary aspects of these endeavours. A nurse or physician who suspects that a patient’s disease is work-related may well need the assistance of an occupational hygienist to identify the toxic exposure (for example) in the workplace that is causing the health problem. Given limited resources, many companies and governments often employ a safety specialist but not a hygienist, requiring that the safety specialist address health as well as safety concerns. The interdependence of safety and health issues should be addressed by offering interdisciplinary training and education to safety and health professionals.

Why Training and Education?

The primary tools needed to achieve the goals of reducing occupational injuries and illnesses and promoting occupational safety and health have been characterized as the “three E’s”—engineering, enforcement and education. The three are interdependent and receive varying levels of emphasis within different national systems. The overall rationale for training and education is to improve awareness of safety and health hazards, to expand knowledge of the causes of occupational illness and injury and to promote the implementation of effective preventive measures. The specific purpose and impetus for training will, however, vary for different target audiences.

Middle and upper level managers

The need for managers who are knowledgeable about the safety and health aspects of the operations for which they are responsible is more widely acknowledged today than heretofore. Employers increasingly recognize the considerable direct and indirect costs of serious accidents and the civil, and in some jurisdictions, criminal liability to which companies and individuals may be exposed. Although belief in the “careless worker” explanation for accidents and injuries remains prevalent, there is increasing recognition that “careless management” can be cited for conditions under its control that contribute to accidents and disease. Finally, firms also realize that poor safety performance is poor public relations; major disasters like the one in the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal (India) can offset years of effort to build a good name for a company.

Most managers are trained in economics, business or engineering and receive little or no instruction during their formal education in occupational health or safety matters. Yet daily management decisions have a critical impact on employee safety and health, both directly and indirectly. To remedy this state of affairs, safety and health concerns have begun to be introduced into management and engineering curricula and into continuing education programmes in many countries. Further efforts to make safety and health information more widespread is clearly necessary.

First-line supervisors

Research has demonstrated the central role played by first-line supervisors in the accident experience of construction employers (Samelson 1977). Supervisors who are knowledgeable about the safety and health hazards of their operations, who effectively train their crew members (especially new employees) and who are held accountable for their crew’s performance hold the key to improving conditions. They are the critical link between workers and the firm’s safety and health policies.

Employees

Law, custom and current workplace trends all contribute to the spread of employee education and training. Increasingly, employee safety and health training is being required by government regulations. Some apply to general practice, while in others the training requirements are related to specific industries, occupations or hazards. Although valid evaluation data on the effectiveness of such training as a countermeasure to work-related injuries and illnesses are surprisingly sparse (Vojtecky and Berkanovic 1984-85); nevertheless the acceptance of training and education for improving safety and health performance in many areas of work is becoming widespread in many countries and companies.

The growth of employee participation programmes, self-directed work teams and shop floor responsibility for decision-making has affected the way in which safety and health approaches are taken as well. Education and training are widely used to enhance knowledge and skills at the level of the line worker, who is now recognized as essential for the effectiveness of these new trends in work organization. A beneficial action employers can take is to involve employees early on (for example, in the planning and design stages when new technologies are introduced into a worksite) to minimize and to anticipate adverse effects on the work environment.

Trade unions have been a moving force both in advocating more and better training for employees and in developing and delivering curricula and materials to their members. In many countries, safety committee members, safety delegates and works council representatives have assumed a growing role in the resolution of hazard problems at the worksite and in inspection and advocacy as well. Persons holding these positions all require training that is more complete and sophisticated than that given to an employee performing a particular job.

Safety and health professionals

The duties of safety and health personnel comprise a broad range of activities that differ widely from one country to another and even within a single profession. Included in this group are physicians, nurses, hygienists and safety engineers either engaged in independent practice or employed by individual worksites, large corporations, government health or labour inspectorates and academic institutions. The demand for trained professionals in the area of occupational safety and health has grown rapidly since the 1970s with the proliferation of government laws and regulations paralleling the growth of corporate safety and health departments and academic research in this field.

Scope and Objectives of Training and Education

This ILO Encyclopaedia itself presents the multitude of issues and hazards that must be addressed and the range of personnel required in a comprehensive safety and health programme. Taking the large view, we can consider the objectives of training and education for safety and health in a number of ways. In 1981, the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health offered the following categories of educational objectives which apply in some degree to all of the groups discussed thus far: (1) cognitive (knowledge), (2) psychomotor (professional skills) and (3) affective (attitude and values). Another framework describes the “information–education–training” continuum, roughly corresponding to the “what”, the “why” and the “how” of hazards and their control. And the “empowerment education” model, to be discussed below, puts great emphasis on the distinction between training—the teaching of competency-based skills with predictable behavioural outcomes—and education—the development of independent critical thinking and decision-making skills leading to effective group action (Wallerstein and Weinger 1992).

Workers need to understand and apply the safety procedures, proper tools and protective equipment for performing specific tasks as part of their job skills training. They also require training in how to rectify hazards that they observe and to be familiar with internal company procedures, in accordance with the safety and health laws and regulations which apply to their area of work. Similarly, supervisors and managers must be aware of the physical, chemical and psychosocial hazards present in their workplaces as well as the social, organizational and industrial relations factors that may be involved in the creation of these hazards and in their correction. Thus, gaining knowledge and skills of a technical nature as well as organizational, communication and problem-solving skills are all necessary objectives in education and training.

In recent years, safety and health education has been influenced by developments in education theory, particularly theories of adult learning. There are different aspects of these developments, such as empowerment education, cooperative learning and participative learning. All share the principle that adults learn best when they are actively involved in problem-solving exercises. Beyond the transmission of specific bits of knowledge or skills, effective education requires the development of critical thinking and an understanding of the context of behaviours and ways of linking what is learned in the classroom to action in the workplace. These principles seem especially appropriate to workplace safety and health, where the causes of hazardous conditions and illnesses and injuries are often a combination of environmental and physical factors, human behaviour and the social context.

In translating these principles into an education programme four categories of objectives must be included:

Information objectives: the specific knowledge that trainees will acquire. For example, knowledge of the effects of organic solvents on the skin and on the central nervous system.

Behavioural objectives: the competencies and skills that workers will learn. For example, the ability to interpret chemical data sheets or to lift a heavy object safely.

Attitude objectives: the beliefs that interfere with safe performance or with response to training that must be addressed. The belief that accidents are not preventable or that “solvents can’t hurt me because I’ve worked with them for years and I’m fine” are examples.

Social action objectives: the ability to analyse a specific problem, identify its causes, propose solutions and plan and take action steps to resolve it. For example, the task of analysing a particular job where several people have sustained back injuries, and of proposing ergonomic modifications, requires the social action of changing the organization of work through labour-management cooperation.

Technological and Demographic Change

Training for awareness and management of specific safety and health hazards obviously depends on the nature of the workplace. While some hazards remain relatively constant, the changes that take place in the nature of jobs and technologies require continuous updating of training needs. Falls from heights, falling objects and noise, for example, have always been and will continue to be prominent hazards in the construction industry, but the introduction of many kinds of new synthetic building materials necessitates additional knowledge and awareness concerning their potential for adverse health effects. Similarly, unguarded belts, blades and other danger points on machinery remain common safety hazards but the introduction of industrial robots and other computer-controlled devices requires training in new types of machinery hazards.

With rapid global economic integration and the mobility of multinational corporations, old and new occupational hazards frequently exist side-by-side in both highly industrialized and developing countries. In an industrializing country sophisticated electronics manufacturing operations may be located next door to a metal foundry that still relies on low technology and the heavy use of manual labour. Meanwhile, in industrialized countries, garment sweatshops with miserable safety and health conditions, or lead battery recycling operations (with its threat of lead toxicity) continue to exist alongside highly automated state-of-the-art industries.

The need for continual updating of information applies as much to workers and managers as it does to occupational health professionals. Inadequacies in the training even of the latter is evidenced by the fact that most occupational hygienists educated in the 1970s received scant training in ergonomics; and even though they received extensive training in air monitoring, it was applied almost exclusively to industrial worksites. But the single largest technological innovation affecting millions of workers since that time is the widespread introduction of computer terminals with visual display units (VDUs). Ergonomic evaluation and intervention to prevent musculoskeletal and vision problems among VDU users was unheard of in the 1970s; by the mid-nineties, VDU hazards have become a major concern of occupational hygiene. Similarly, the application of occupational hygiene principles to indoor air quality problems (to remedy “tight/sick building syndrome”, for example) has required a great deal of continuing education for hygienists accustomed only to evaluating factories. Psychosocial factors, also largely unrecognized as occupational health hazards before the 1980s, play an important role in the treatment of VDU and indoor air hazards, and of many others as well. All parties investigating such health problems need education and training in order to understand the complex interactions among environment, the individual and social organization in these settings.

The changing demographics of the workforce must also be considered in safety and health training. Women make up an increasing proportion of the workforce in both developed and developing nations; their health needs in and out of the workplace must be addressed. The concerns of immigrant workers raise numerous new training questions, including those to do with language, although language and literacy issues are certainly not limited to immigrant workers: varying literacy levels among native-born workers must also be considered in the design and delivery of training. Older workers are another group whose needs must be studied and incorporated into education programmes as their numbers increase in the working population of many nations.

Training Venues and Providers

The location of training and education programmes is determined by the audience, the purpose, the content, the duration of the programme and, to be realistic, the resources available in the country or region. The audience for safety and health education starts with schoolchildren, trainees and apprentices, and extends to workers, supervisors, managers and safety and health professionals.

Training in schools

Incorporation of safety and health education into elementary and secondary education, and especially in vocational and technical training schools, is a growing and very positive trend. The teaching of hazard recognition and control as a regular part of skills training for particular occupations or trades is far more effective than trying to impart such knowledge later, when the worker has been in the trade for a period of years, and has already developed set practices and behaviours. Such programmes, of course, necessitate that the teachers in these schools also be trained to recognize hazards and apply preventive measures.

On-the-job training

On-the-job training at the worksite is appropriate for workers and supervisors facing specific hazards found onsite. If the training is of significant length, a comfortable classroom facility within the worksite is strongly recommended. In cases where locating the training at the workplace may intimidate workers or otherwise discourage their full participation in the class, an offsite venue is preferable. Workers may feel more comfortable in a union setting where the union plays a major role in designing and delivering the programme. However, field visits to actual work locations which illustrate the hazards in question are always a positive addition to the course.

Training of safety delegates and committee members

The longer and more sophisticated training recommended for safety delegates and committee representatives is often delivered at specialized training centres, universities or commercial facilities. More and more efforts are being made to implement regulatory requirements for training and certification of workers who are to perform in certain hazardous fields such as asbestos abatement and hazardous waste handling. These courses usually include both classroom and hands-on sessions, where actual performance is simulated and specialized equipment and facilities are required.

Providers of onsite and offsite programmes for workers and safety representatives include government agencies, tripartite organizations like the ILO or analogous national or sub-national bodies, business associations and labour unions, universities, professional associations and private training consultants. Many governments provide funds for the development of safety and health training and education programmes targeted at specific industries or hazards.

Academic and professional training

The training of safety and health professionals varies widely among countries, depending on the needs of the working population and the country’s resources and structures. Professional training is centred in undergraduate and postgraduate university programmes, but these vary in availability in different parts of the world. Degree programmes may be offered for specialists in occupational medicine and nursing and occupational health may be incorporated into the training of general practitioners and of primary care and public health nurses. The number of degree-granting programmes for occupational hygienists has increased dramatically. However, there remains a strong demand for short courses and less comprehensive training for hygiene technicians, many of whom have received their basic training on the job in particular industries.

There is an acute need for more trained safety and health personnel in the developing world. While more university-trained and credentialed physicians, nurses and hygienists will undoubtedly be welcomed in these countries, it is nonetheless realistic to expect that many health services will continue to be delivered by primary health care workers. These people need training in the relationship between work and health, in the recognition of the major safety and health risks associated with the type of work carried on in their region, in basic survey and sampling techniques, in the use of the referral network available in their region for suspected cases of occupational illness and in health education and risk communication techniques (WHO1988).

Alternatives to university-based degree programmes are critically important to professional training in both developing and industrialized nations, and would include continuing education, distance education, on-the-job training and self-training, among others.

Conclusion

Education and training cannot solve all occupational safety and health problems, and care must be taken that the techniques learned in such programmes are in fact applied appropriately to the identified needs. They are, however, critical components of an effective safety and health programme when employed in conjunction with engineering and technical solutions. Cumulative, interactive and continuous learning is essential to prepare our rapidly changing work environments to meet the needs of workers, especially as regards the prevention of debilitating injuries and illnesses. Those who labour in the workplace as well as those who provide support from the outside need the most up-to-date information available and the skills to put this information to use in order to protect and promote worker health and safety.

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