2008 National Occupational Injury Research Symposium

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is sponsoring a contest to recognize outstanding evaluations of interventions designed to prevent work injuries. The evaluation may be of any safety intervention, from a simple tool or equipment change at a single worksite to a comprehensive program implemented at multiple sites. Intervention can address training, protective equipment, or policies applied throughout a corporation, industry, state or nationally, such as an OSHA standard. Contestants will have an opportunity to share evaluation experiences in a special session of the National Occupational Injury Research Symposium on October 21 - 23, 2008, in Pittsburgh. Submission deadline: Closed.

Eligibility

• Employer and employees;


• Representatives of policy-making or occupational safety program organizations;


• Consultants, academics, or graduate students.

Award Categories

The number and selection of award categories will depend on the numbers and types of submissions.

Awards

Awards will be made on the basis of the quality and completeness of the submissions, as specified in the award criteria listed below. Finalists will be notified by July 31, 2008 and announced at the National Occupational Injury Research Symposium (NOIRS), October 21 - 23, 2008 in Pittsburgh. Financial support will be awarded to finalists for travel to NOIRS.

NOIRS Session

NIOSH will host a session at NOIRS in which contest finalists will present their winning submissions. The session will provide an open forum in which contest participants and conference participants will discuss safety intervention evaluations. The session will focus on challenges of intervention evaluation research and possible solutions.

Publicizing Submissions

Some contest submissions may be disseminated through the NIOSH Website, together with recognition of the winners and runners-up.

Award Criteria

1. Description of the need for a safety intervention;


2. Description of the safety intervention;


3. Explanation of study design and methods. For example, does the report identify the study design, sample or sample strategy, the outcome and impact measures, and how data were collected and analyzed? Did the report explain the results fully, considering the role of other factors that might have affected the results (e.g., changes in management or production processes independent of the intervention)? For reports of evaluations involving primarily qualitative data, the richness and depth of data collected and the quality of data interpretation.


4. Implications of the evaluation results for the field of occupational injury prevention.

For More Information

Contact Jim Collins via e-mail at joc4@cdc.gov or by phone at (304) 285-5998.

Plenaries

Student Paper Award