The goal of this research effort is to reduce morbidity and mortality due to wood dust exposure in small woodworking shops. This goal is consistent with Healthy People 2000 Occupational Safety and Health, Health Protection Objective 10.14 for providing assistance and consultation to assist small businesses in implementing safety and health programs for their employees. This goal also supports Occupational Safety and Health Research Needs which include developing """"""""new measurement tools for assessing worker exposures"""""""" (Public Health Service, 1990).
The specific aims of this research are: 1) To measure mean wood dust exposures in small woodworking businesses (3-20 employees) and to assess the level of dust controls (engineering, administrative, behavioral) as measured by a walk through survey; 2) To determine if an efficient industrial hygiene intervention program can be implemented in small woodworking shops; and 3) To assess the effectiveness of this industrial hygiene intervention by a standard public health strategy in a randomized controlled trial. The importance of this effort is underscored by the number of people employed as woodworkers, particularly the large proportion who work in shops that are small businesses with limited resources for effectively controlling wood dust exposures. The adverse health effects of these exposures include nasal cancer, allergic respiratory disease, and bronchitis, and may include allergic rhinitis and occupational asthma. A randomized controlled trial will be conducted to evaluate an intervention to reduce wood dust exposure in shops assigned to receive recommendations and technical assistance compared to shops receiving recommendations only for reducing dust levels. The shops receiving technical assistance will have a plan tailored to their individual shop environment which will include any appropriate engineering, administrative, and behavioral controls for reducing wood dust exposure. The sampling frame for this effort will include all woodworking shops within the Minneapolis-St Paul area; approximately 40-60 shops will be randomized. This sampling frame and the study procedures will be developed with the involvement of an industry Advisory Board of shop owners, workers, and union representatives. The primary outcome measure will be a comparison of the change from baseline in mean dust exposure levels for intervention and comparison shops at the final measurement of dust levels. A secondary outcome measure will compare levels of dust control based on the walk-through survey developed for this effort. In addition, the overall correlation between the work-through survey and mean dust levels (log scale) will be assessed.
