The School-To-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) was passed in 1994 to support high school youth throughout the nation's public schools in transitioning from school to career-focused work. The Act created a work-based learning program that was modeled after the concept of an apprenticeship which would integrate school-based instruction with structured on-the-job training. Although federal funding for the STW program ended in 2001, many states continue to provide STW program activities for high school students. A report from the United States Department of Education showed that 71.8% of public high schools with 12th grades offered work-based learning programs for credit and 60% offered job shadowing opportunities. Since the inception of the Act, limited research has been conducted to assess STW programs. To date, no studies have investigated work- related injury and occupational safety and health training among students enrolled in work-based learning programs. The proposed study, by a new investigator, will generate information related to the safety and health of students involved in work-based learning programs. To document the occurrence of injury among students in STW programs, data from the Wisconsin State Survey of Youth will be used to accomplish three specific aims: 1. Determine the prevalence, severity, and types of injury that students enrolled in STW programs are sustaining on the job and determine if the prevalence differs by gender, age, race/ethnicity, and job tasks. 2. Delineate whether STW students have fewer injuries compared with other working students and determine if the findings differ based on the hours worked during the day, the total number of hours worked per week, and the job tasks completed. 3. Determine if students enrolled in the STW program are less likely to report being injured and less likely to have """"""""near-miss"""""""" incidents compared to other working students who reported receiving OSH training. While there is a large body of information about safety training and injury in adult workers, very little is known about safety training and injury in young workers and none at all in students enrolled in work-based learning programs. The questionnaire data to be analyzed in the proposed study presents the most detailed data available on: work-based learning programs, injuries among the students enrolled in these programs, and safety training and behavioral characteristics among the enrolled students. This proposed project offers the first opportunity to evaluate the occupational safety and health among work-based learning students and compare it to other working students. Injury among working youth is a major public health problem. Many high school students participate in a School-to-Work program, which combines school-based learning with on-the-job mentoring. Nothing is known about the occurrence and severity of injury among students enrolled in the program. This study will be the first to address the occurrence of injury among students enrolled in school-to-work programs.
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