Background of the Center
The Hunter College Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (Hunter COEH) is a multi-disciplinary, university-based, program whose mission is to promote safe and healthy workplace and environmental conditions.
Hunter COEH is a nationally recognized leader in the development and evaluation of Right-to-Know education programs. Since 1985, Hunter COEH staff have trained over 11,000 workers in dozens of industries to understand the hazards associated with chemical in their worksites and their rights as employees and citizens to protection from their harmful effects.
Hunter COEH was selected by the NYC Mayor's Office of Operations in 1988 to develop a model right-to-know program to prepare mayoral agencies to meet their obligations to employees under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Public Employee Safety and Health (OSHA and PESH) Hazard Communication Standards and to pilot these programs. In one year, Hunter COEH developed 180 chemical- and job title-specific factsheets on dangerous processes and chemicals and trained over 4,300 employees. This program also trained 48 trainers in 12 mayoral agencies to continue the work using the COEH developed curriculum. The outcome of this program was evaluated and later published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine (Michaels, et al., 1992). In recognition of the concentration of hazardous chemicals in other professions, Hunter COEH developed similar programs for laboratory and hospital employees, and has authored and published two widely distributed manuals, entitled Developing a Chemical Hygiene Program: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Health and Safety Compliance in Research and Teaching Laboratories (Kass, et al, 1992); and Hazardous Materials Response in Hospitals; a Guide for Spill Responders and Hospital Employees (Hunter COEH, 1994). The later manual was developed as part of our Hazardous Materials Worker Training Project which trains hazardous waste site investigators, clean-up workers and environmental enforcement personnel in safe and legally compliant waste operations. Hunter staff recently completed a guide to prevent lead exposure in telecommunications workers (Kass and Hodge, 1994)
Hunter COEH also has experience in developing cancer education programs. We have developed exercises, curricula materials and booklets which instruct, in layperson terms, the process of carcinogenesis, dose-response controversies in carcinogenesis and on primary and secondary prevention strategies. Our asbestos education projects, for example, have trained thousands of members of the NY District Council of Carpenters and other construction unions, chemical workers belonging to the International Chemical Workers Union and many others, on the carcinogenic properties of asbestos and its substitutes, an trained hundreds to safety remove and contain asbestos materials.
In 1993, Hunter COEH was awarded a contract from the South Nassau Communities Hospital to develop a curriculum and train hospital employees on Electromagnetic Radiation and magnetic resonance imager hazards.
Over its history, Hunter COEH has worked with unions, employers and organizations which serve a range of communities. Hunter has guided the translation and original authorship of several spanish language publications. These include a guide on asbestos, Trabajando Con Asbesto, and a prevention guide to repetitive strain illnesses, Trabajando Sin Dolor (Millies, et al 1989, and Manowitz and Kass, 1992). For several years, Hunter COEH has worked with the Pesticide Task Force of Farmworker Legal Services of NY and the NYS Department of Health Occupational Disease Registry, helping to develop educational models for NY's migrant farmworkers facing pesticide and lead hazards. Our lead poisoning prevention projects work specifically with communities of color in Brownsville, Bedford- Stuyvesant, East and Central Harlem and Washington Heights. Daniel Kass recently consulted to the Pan American Health Organization by helping to develop environmental education strategies for the Mexican Government's Central Directorate of Environmental Health in Mexico City. Evaluating, evaluating, understanding and responding to the needs of a multi-cultural, multi-lingual community like that of Greenpoint and Williamsburg is further facilitated by our multi-racial, multi-ethnic staff anticipated to participate in this project.
Hunter is also intimately familiar with the specific concentration of industries in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The Community Environmental Health Program at Hunter College, now part of Hunter COEH published a report in 1989 on industrial hazards entitled, "Hazardous neighbors? Living Next Door to Industry in Greenpoint/Williamsburg". (Kissmen et al, 1989). In 1990, Hunter COEH and Local 107 of the United Paperworkers International Union collaborated in an effort to reduce lead exposure among its largely Hispanic and African-American workforce at Brooklyn Foil, a Williamsburg plant and the nation's largest manufacturer of metallic lead foil. COEH and Dr. Nick Freudenberg continue to work with several Greenpoint/Williamsburg community organizations. Hunter COEH is currently working with El Puente to develop and implement a leadership program on lead poisoning prevention. Other groups with strong ties to health issues and to Hunter College include the Puerto Rican Family and Children Institute, the South Side Political Action Coalition, and the South Side Mission, with which Dr. Freudenberg and the Hunter College Center on AIDS, Drugs and Community Health are exploring ways to incorporate AIDS prevention training into their organizational missions. A preliminary list of organizations in Williamsburg and Greenpoint which may be open to participation in this program is attached in Appendix B.
The Right-to-Know train-the-trainer program mentioned above is but one of many programs Hunter COEH has developed which resulted in developing training skills within participating organizations. Hunter has helped the staff and membership of many labor unions, public agencies, private employers and community organizations develop skills in delivering training and education programs and as communicators. In 1990, employing a model similar to that described in this proposal for the GWEBC project, Hunter trained employees from several paper and chemical industry employers to conduct training on lung cancer and other respiratory diseases associated with working in their respective trades. Currently, with the support of the NYS Department of Labor, Hunter serves as an educational resource center in the downstate area by sponsoring bimonthly forums on issues of importance to safety and health educators in unions, public agencies and community organizations. Recent forums have addressed methods for conducting needs assessment, working with populations of varying literacy and maximizing trainee participation.
Recognizing the significant role which community organizations play in prioritizing and addressing public health concerns, COEH and the Hunter College Program in Community Health have recently initiated an effort to increase organizational access to public health data and increase their staff's and constituency's skills in understanding and utilizing the data to develop prevention programs. A proposal is currently pending with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which will enable researchers, public health agencies and community based organizations to plan and deliver an intensive three-day conference toward this end.
The staff of COEH has had extensive experience in planning, implementing and evaluating worker training and education programs. We have conducted programs in collaboration with the following unions and employers throughout the United States: the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union; the Roofing and Waterproofing Contractors Association of New York City; the United States Postal Service; the Sheet Metal Contractors Association of New York City; the United Auto Workers; the New York Botanical Gardens and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. In particular, our work with the United Paperworkers International Union has resulted in extensive training of its NY State workers on lung and ergonomic hazards in mills and paper conversion plants. The English and Spanish publication of Working Without Pain: A Guide to Improving Jobs in the Converting Sector has been distributed to over 2,000 NY paperworkers and was recently featured in the Bureau of National Affairs Labor Report (Manowitz and Kass, BNA 1992). The United Paperworkers International Union has reprinted 5,000 guides for distribution throughout the United States.
COEH has extensive experience in developing, implementing and evaluating chemical hazard and Right to Know training programs, particularly for public sector agencies and workers. During the past five years, we have designed and conducted Right-to-Know training for more than 5,000 New York City employees, in a wide- variety of job titles. We have worked both for the Mayor's Office directly or in collaboration with joint labor-management programs with DC 37, AFSCME. Program faculty have also served as training consultants to the two largest non-mayoral municipal employers in New York City: The Board of Education and The Health and Hospitals Corporation.
This proposal describes four efforts to improve the health and safety of New York workers. Each of them draw on extensive experience with the content and the target populations described in the Program Narratives, above.
A. Carpet Layer, Carpenter Apprentice Instructor and Carpenter Apprentice Health and Safety Training:
COEH has extensive experience training construction workers and carpenters. Since 1986, COEH has been committed to training apprentices in several of the building trades to recognize and abate occupational hazards. With funding from the New York State Department of Labor, we have designed, implemented and evaluated a comprehensive and highly successful asbestos awareness program for several thousand apprentice carpenters and stationary engineers, and over 500 union leaders and journeymen during the past three years. In a contract with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, International office; COEH developed a national asbestos abatement training program in 12 locations across the US. We have also assisted the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in the development of a similar asbestos awareness training program for telecommunications workers. Currently, we are currently working with the NY District Council of Carpenters to host a Fall, 1995 statewide conference on musculo-skeletal hazards of carpentry.
B. Injury Investigation, Analysis and Prevention.
Injury prevention is an area in which COEH staff have been involved for more than a decade. Following publication of their 1982 article Occupational Safety: Why Do Accidents Happen?, which was widely circulated by unions in the United States and translated and published in France. Stephen Zoloth and Daniel Kass have been asked to consult on injury prevention by numerous unions and employers. These include the United States Postal Service; the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union; the Public Employees Federation and the New York State Governor's Office of Employee Relations, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and NIOSH.
Hunter COEH has also completed the development and testing of the Workplace Incident Surveillance Program (WISP), which will be utilized by many participants in this proposal. The WISP program has already begun to gain recognition in the area of injury prevention. In 1993, Daniel Kass and Stephen Zoloth delivered a talk on WISP to surveillance staff at NIOSH. Daniel Kass presented a paper to the American Public Health Association's annual meeting in Washington DC describing the progress to date.
C. Conducting Train-the-Trainer Programs:
Each of our educational efforts includes, by design, an effort to increase the ability of cooperating institutions to carry out increasingly complex training. In 1988, we designed and conducted extensive train-the-trainer programs on behalf of eight NYC Mayoral Agencies on the NYS Right-to-Know laws. In addition, the Center has consulted to the Mexican Directorate of Environmental Health, training over 30 officials in a three-day train-the-trainer program designed to assist the government's ability to communicate effectively with workers and community organizations around environmental and occupational hazards. Daniel Kass has conducted a two-day workshop entitled "Empowerment Approaches to Health & Safety Training," co- sponsored by the Syracuse Occupational Medicine Clinical Center, one of the recipients of NYS DOL clinic funds. That program trained industrial hygienists, clinical staff and labor representatives in designing participatory and skill-building training around occupational hazards. For the past 18 months, we have conducted the Occupational Health Educator's Forums where participants discuss educational issues. It is this program which is the basis for our train-the-trainer roundtables proposed for 1996.
D. Ergonomics
The Center has a conducted a great deal of work in recent years on the subject of ergonomics. Over the past years, Hunter COEH has worked closely as a consultant to the United Paperworkers International Union's Health and Safety Department with New York State Department of Labor funded programs. These programs have funded an extensive needs assessment of paper conversion workers which has become the basis for our current NYS DOL funded project to address ergonomic hazards in New York State. To date, this project has trained 180 union members for two-days each on ergonomic hazard recognition, assessment and prevention. Hunter COEH authored English and Spanish editions of a workers' manual entitled Working Without Pain: A Guide to Ergonomics in the Paper Converting Industry.
In 1993, Hunter COEH was selected as one of four national sites in the Workplace Health Fund's NIOSH-funded ergonomic education grant. For that course, we redesigned a basic curriculum to be more work-centered, recruited 30 union representatives from the Northeast and conducted a four-day training program. Some of the materials from that course will be modified to suit apprentice instructions in the project described in this proposal.
Hunter COEH was recently a consultant to the United Rubberworkers Union's annual health and safety training conference in Tampa, FL, at which Daniel Kass delivered multiple training sessions on various subjects within the general field of ergonomics. COEH is currently carrying out a unique epidemiological study with the Mount Sinai, Irving J. Selikoff Occupational Medicine Clinical Center to assess self-reported symptoms and clinical diagnoses and their changes, among garment workers in NYC before and after a significant ergonomic interventions. This project, directed at Mount Sinai by Robin Herbert, MD MPH, will report preliminary data in Summer, 1995.