Comprehensive Occupational Safety Training (Cost)

Work related injuries and illnesses have risen to their highest level in ten years. Recent Departmestatistics indicate that a total of 6.8 million cases were reported in 1992 at a rate of 8.9 cases pfinancial cost of occupational injuries are in $60 billion range and include such things as medicallegal fees, and lost productivity. These data provide compelling evidence that work-related injuriesassociated costs are a massive economic and social problem. Interestingly, the incidence of injury iemployers whose survival is most threatened by the high cost of worker's compensation. Ironically, shave the highest accident incidence rate because, in part, they are least able to afford to integrattechnologies into their operations. These investigators have developed and piloted a comprehensive otraining program (COST) targeted for small businesses that typically have serious safety problems. Tbehaviorally based training procedure that guides company safety personnel through a systematic procexistent safety management and developing a comprehensive strategy to control hazards and establishdate, the 48 companies that have completed this prototype program have realized a significant reductrelated accidents and injuries. In the current application, these investigators propose to further aprogram and refine the program materials. The ultimate goal of the project is twofold: 1) is to makeemployers a commercially viable and tested behaviorally-based training program that can have an immeimpact on work related injuries/illnesses and their associated costs, 2) prepare for a large scale rconducted in Phase II research.