Measures of change in risk related work practices and in reported symptoms and clinical signs of neurotoxin exposure among three 150-member study groups will be used to evaluate the impact of a workplace exposure-reduction training intervention program designed for high-risk painters in the 450,00-worker paint trades. High-risk painters and their offspring may experience significantly elevated risk of cancers at 11 body sites, along with various other documented work-related disorders and diseases, especially acute and chronic neurological disorders.
The specific aim i s to evaluate the impact of the exposure-reduction training and any social, environmental or organizational factors which may facilitate and sustain its effect. Study design uses an experimental group of high-risk painters selected by a set of sequentially applied criteria involving a neurotoxic screening questionnaire designed by the applicant. This experimental group receives exposure-reduction training and is compared, pre and post, with a placebo training group and with a non-exposed non-trained control group. Statistical and other comparisons among and between these groups will be made using results of pre and post-training clinical examinations using a battery of neurobehavioral and other tests designed and administered by scientists at the Harvard University Occupational Health Program, neurotoxic symptoms reporting and industrial hygiene samples from worksites. The efficacy of self-reported neurotoxic symptoms as a reliable indicator of elevated risk and the validity of the neurotoxic symptoms screening questionnaire as a targeting instrument will be assessed. Long-term objectives include evaluation of study outcomes in relation to efforts to deliver training to currently untrained members of the reference population and to evaluations of alternative and supplemental approaches to the desired reduction of the well-documented health risks of construction and maintenance painters.
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