Integrated Approaches to Health and Safety in a Dynamic Construction Work Environment (ARM For SUBS)

Integrated Approaches to Health and Safety in a Dynamic Construction Work Environment (All the Right Moves for Subcontractors)

"All the Right Moves for Subcontractors" aims to improve safety, health and well-being, through the development of a communication infrastructure with supplemental tools where construction workers and company mangers (project, operations and safety) work together to collaboratively identify problems and strategies to improve their conditions of work. The intervention is grounded in the key characteristics of integrated organizational interventions to improve workers' health safety and well-being detailed in Harvard Center for Work, Health and Well-being's Implementation Guidelines (McLellan et al, 2016).

The intervention involves a cyclical approach through which the research team facilitate a participatory process to identify workers' health concerns, prioritize these concerns, use an action planning process to identify and operationalize solutions, and develop a company-specific evaluation plan to measure change. We will evaluate this program by measuring safety climate, health climate, pain and injury and health behaviors.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Pain; Worker Health; Work Injury; Safety Climate
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: All the Right Moves for Subcontractors

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 144
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02115
      • Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• All workers employed by the recruited contractors at the eligible worksites

Exclusion Criteria:

• Companies with less than 5 workers

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Early; Intervention is administered for cycle 1 and 2 with researchers and following this the company continues intervention independently.	Other: All the Right Moves for Subcontractors; "All the Right Moves for Subcontractors" aims to improve safety, health and wellbeing, through the development of a communication infrastructure with supplemental tools where construction workers and company mangers work together to collaboratively identify problems and strategies to improve their conditions of work. The intervention is grounded in the key characteristics of integrated organizational interventions to improve workers' health safety and wellbeing detailed in Harvard Center for Work, Health and Wellbeing's Implementation Guidelines (McLellan et al, 2016). The intervention involves a cyclical approach through which the research team facilitate a participatory process to identify workers' health concerns, prioritize these concerns, use an action planning process to identify and operationalize solutions, and develop a company-specific evaluation plan to measure change.; Other Names: ARM for SUBS
Active Comparator: Lagged; Intervention is not administered for cycle 1; researchers administer intervention in cycle 2 and following this the company continues intervention independently.	Other: All the Right Moves for Subcontractors; "All the Right Moves for Subcontractors" aims to improve safety, health and wellbeing, through the development of a communication infrastructure with supplemental tools where construction workers and company mangers work together to collaboratively identify problems and strategies to improve their conditions of work. The intervention is grounded in the key characteristics of integrated organizational interventions to improve workers' health safety and wellbeing detailed in Harvard Center for Work, Health and Wellbeing's Implementation Guidelines (McLellan et al, 2016). The intervention involves a cyclical approach through which the research team facilitate a participatory process to identify workers' health concerns, prioritize these concerns, use an action planning process to identify and operationalize solutions, and develop a company-specific evaluation plan to measure change.; Other Names: ARM for SUBS

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Worker Outcomes: Injury assessed by the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire	NMQ has been applied to a wide range of occupational groups to evaluate musculoskeletal problems Scale:0-1 0:minimum 1:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Worker Outcomes: Pain assessed by the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire	NMQ has been applied to a wide range of occupational groups to evaluate musculoskeletal problems Scale:0-1 0:minimum 1:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Enterprise Outcomes: Work Productivity and Activity Impairment assessed by Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire (WPAI)	Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire (WPAI) measures impairment due to the specified problem and all health problems. Scale:0-1 0:minimum 1:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Enterprise Outcomes: Health Climate assessed by questions modified from safety climate scale for construction workers	Questions adapted from safety climate scale: Jorgensen, E., Sokas, R. K., Nickels, L., Gao, W., & Gittleman, J. L. (2007). An English/Spanish safety climate scale for construction workers. American journal of industrial medicine, 50(6), 438-442. Scale:0-1 0:minimum 1:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Enterprise Outcomes: Safety Climate assessed by using the validated scale: An English/Spanish safety climate scale for construction workers.	Jorgensen, E., Sokas, R. K., Nickels, L., Gao, W., & Gittleman, J. L. (2007). An English/Spanish safety climate scale for construction workers. American journal of industrial medicine, 50(6), 438-442. Scale:0-1 0:minimum 1:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Worker Health Behaviors: Diet	PrimeScreen Questionnaire; Rifas-Shiman SL, Willett WC, Lobb R, Kotch J, Dart C, Gillman MW. PrimeScreen, a brief dietary screening tool: reproducibility and comparability with both a longer food frequency questionnaire and biomarkers. Public Health Nutr. 2001 Apr;4(2):249-54 Scale: 0-4 0:minimum 4:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Worker Health Behaviors: Leisure Physical Activity	International Physical Activity Questionnaire (Short Form)http://uacc.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/ipaq_english_telephone_short.pdf Scale: 0-7 days 0=minimum 7=maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Worker Health Behaviors: Alcohol Use assessed by using validated questions from NIAAA	National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Scale:0-9 0:minimum 9:maximum https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/research/guidelines-and-resources/recommended-alcohol-questions	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Worker Health Behaviors: Tobacco Use assessed by modifying questions from the National Adult Tobacco Survey (NATS)	Dichotomous questions adapted from the National Adult Tobacco Survey (NATS) Scale:0-2 0:minimum 2:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Psychosocial Work Environment: Co-worker Support assessed by assessed by Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ), a validated scale.	Uses questions from the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ), a validated scale by Karasek_et_al__1998 Scale:0-1 0:minimum 1:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Psychosocial Work Environment: Supervisor Support assessed by Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ), a validated scale.	Uses questions from the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ), a validated scale by Karasek_et_al__1998 Scale:0-1 0:minimum 1:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months
Psychosocial Work Environment: Communication assessed by Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ), a validated scale.	Uses questions from the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ), a validated scale by Karasek_et_al__1998 Scale:0-1 0:minimum 1:maximum	Change from Baseline at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Peters SE, Trieu HD, Manjourides J, Katz JN, Dennerlein JT. Designing a Participatory Total Worker Health(R) Organizational Intervention for Commercial Construction Subcontractors to Improve Worker Safety, Health, and Well-Being: The "ARM for Subs" Trial. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Jul 15;17(14):5093. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17145093.

Helpful Links

• Implementing an Integrated Approach Weaving Worker Health, Safety, and Well-being into the Fabric of Your Organization.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): July 24, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 28, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): November 20, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 20, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 18, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): December 19, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 10, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 3, 2021
• Last Verified: November 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: IRB13-1948

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No