OCAW promotes worker-investigators
OCAW Reporter, May-June 1997
ONE OF THE KEY components of OCAW's Medical Surveillance
program for former DOE workers is the development and use
of worker-investigators. The worker-investigators are the
local union, site-specific health and safety
representatives assigned to the DOE Medical Surveillance
Grant. The grant is a one-year needs assessment to
determine what kind of medical testing, if any, is
appropriate for former DOE workers.
Risk mapping; focus groups
The site-specific OCAW DOE representatives on the
Medical Surveillance Project are conducting "Focus
Groups" and "Risk Mapping." The Focus Groups are aimed
at finding out the health concerns, including
occupational health concerns, of former DOE workers and
their health expectations such as medical testing.
The
Risk Mapping sessions look at site maps and building maps
and plot the hazards by type and levels.
Participatory research
The concept of the worker as investigator is not new,
but OCAW has expanded its boundaries. "Participatory
Research:' as it is often called, has been used in
Europe, in the U. S. and in developing countries. It
usually consists of a questionnaire on working conditions
and health and a risk map that graphically represents the
work process, its hazards and the degree of hazards as
well as workers' health problems. The majority of these
research projects have been used for collective
bargaining or as background documentation for local
action. OCAW's worker-investigators are working in
partnership with the academic researchers. They are
providing the descriptive data to back up the evaluation
of the quantitative records of the exposure and health
studies.
This approach is based on OCAW's conviction
that workers, who are most affected by hazards, are in an
ideal position to investigate the hazards. They know the
most about the working environment because they are
there; they know the process from first-hand experience.
The worker-investigator notion also arises out of our
experience that the "expert" approach often repels
workers and discourages active participation and
involvement. It keeps workers passive.
Worker-trainers are model
The concept of the worker-investigator arises out of a
decade of experience with OCAW's worker-trainers. The
worker-trainers, occupational safety and health education
coordinators (OSHECs) use the Small Group Activity
Method, (SGAM) a learner-centered teaching where the
students learn by doing. Problem-solving activities cull
from the work experiences of the participants so that
everyone in the class learns from the collective
knowledge of the group. Worker-investigators also call
upon the institutional or collective knowledge of the
group. For instance, the moderator in the Focus Group
will pose the question, "Do you think you are at risk for
an occupational disease?" and this will lead to a group
discussion of the health effects experienced by the
former workers today as well as in past. In this way, a
picture gradually takes shape as to what kinds of
symptoms and conditions people are experiencing and the
information contributes to what kind of medical tests are
needed.
Training the investigators
OCAW held a train-the-investigators class for the DOE
worker-investigators in January. There, Mark Griffon,
University of Massachusetts at Lowell researcher, and
Libby Averill Samaras, Alice Hamilton College health
educator, started the investigators off on a workbook the
two prepared on Focus Groups and Risk Mapping. One of the
investigators presented the material, while the others
observed and critiqued. The instructors stayed in the
background. As the investigators went through the draft
workbook, they also edited it, making improvements as
they went along. From their training in that class, the
investigators at each site are now conducting Risk
Mapping and Focus Group sessions at their respective
sites for the former workers. The two groups of workers
share a common goal and a common past. The effects of
their working in the DOE weapons complex and their shared
history makes them work together well.
This is just the
beginning of OCAW's development of worker-investigators.
We want to move toward using these investigators in many
traditional scientific studies as partners with the
academic researchers. It is one more step in moving
forward on the workers' right to act issue.
Medical Surveillance Grant
OCAW's DOE Medical Surveillance Grant covers the three
gaseous diffusion facilities: Portsmouth, Ohio Local
3-689; Paducah, Ky. Local 3-550; and Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Local 3-288.