IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY BY DOSE EQUIVALENCY MODELING

SCREENING WORKERS FOR PERFORMANCE IMPARIMENT MAY AID IN REMOVING DRUGS FROM THE WORKPLACE AND IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY. THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD WAY TO MEASURE PERFORMANCE WOULD SEEM TO BE UNDER ACTUAL WORKING CONDITIONS. IN CASES WHERE THIS IS ATTEMPTED, HOWEVER, JOB PERFORMANCE MEASURES ARE GENERALLY INSENSITIVE TO ALL BUT THE MOST POWERFUL EFFECTS. A CENTRAL PROBLEM IS THE LACK OF RELIABILITY OF ON-THE-JOB MEASURES. HOWEVER, TESTS WHICH POSSESS ROBUST PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES (STABILITY, RELIABILITY, ETC.) HAVE BEEN SHOWN TOBE SENSITIVE TO ALCOHOL, SLEEP LOSS, HYPOZIA, HALON, AND DRUGS. IN PHASE I, THROUGH EXPERIMENTAL WORK, WE WOULD INDEX HUMAN PERFORMANCE DECREMENTS TO ALCOHOL DOSAGE (FOR WHICH FEDERALLY MANDATED STANDARDS ALREADY EXIST FOR SOME OCCUPATIONS). THEN WE WILL DERIVE CALIBRATION ALGORITHMS FOR COMPARING PERFORMANCE CHANGES IN BLOOD ALCOHOL CONCENTRATION UNITS TO LOSSES FROM OTHER AGENTS, TREATMENTS AND STRESSORS. LASTLY, WE WILL PRODUCE A FULLY UP-AND-RUNNING PROTOTYPE SPECIAL PURPOSE TEST STATION WHICH WILL CONTAIN THESE ALGORITHMS SO THAT THEY CAN BE SET TO PREDETERMINED LEVELS. IN PHASE II, ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENTAL WORK WILL BE CONDUCTED TO REFINE THE ALGORITHMS, ADD OTHER TREATMENTS, AND IMPROVE THE DESIGN OF THE TEST STATION BY CONDUCTING TEST AND EVALUATION AT LABORATORY AND WORK SITES.