Implementation of Occupational Sun Safety at a 2-Year Follow-Up in a Randomized Trial: Comparison of Sun Safe Workplaces Policy Intervention to Attention Control

• Published in: American journal of health promotion Vol. 33; no. 5; pp. 683 - 697
• Main Authors: Buller, David B., Walkosz, Barbara J., Buller, Mary Klein, Wallis, Allan, Andersen, Peter A., Scott, Michael D., Meenan, Richard T., Cutter, Gary R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2019; American Journal of Health Promotion
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Action; Adolescent; Adult; Clustering; Communication; Employers; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Government employees; Health Behavior; Health Policy; Health promotion; Health Promotion - organization & administration; Health Promotion - statistics & numerical data; Health technology assessment; Humans; Implementation; Intervention; Labor force; Local government; Male; Measures; Middle Aged; Occupational Health; Older people; Organizations; Program Evaluation; Protective Clothing; Public safety; Public works; Recreation; Skin cancer; Socioeconomic Factors; Sunburn - prevention & control; Sunscreening Agents - administration & dosage; Supervisors; Work; Workers; Workplace; Workplaces; Young Adult; skin cancer; occupational; prevention; implementation
• ISSN: 0890-1171; 2168-6602
• DOI: 10.1177/0890117118814398

Purpose: Implementation of employer sun safety actions was assessed in a 2-year follow-up to an occupational sun protection policy intervention. Design: Two-year follow-up assessment in a randomized pretest–posttest controlled design. Setting: Local government organizations with workers in public safety, public works, and parks and recreation. Participants: Sixty-three local government organizations (participation = 64%) and 330 frontline supervisors and 1454 workers. Intervention: Sun Safe Workplaces (SSW) intervention promoting occupational sun safety policy and education. Measures: Observations of SSW messages and sun safety items and surveys on organizations’ communication and actions on sun safety. Analysis: Comparison between SSW and control groups was conducted using regression models and adjusted for clustering where appropriate, with α criterion set at P = .05 (2-tailed). Results: At intervention worksites, more SSW messages (P < .001) and sun safety items (P = .025) were observed; more frontline supervisors reported organizations provided free/reduced price sunscreen (P = .005) and communicated about sun safety (P < .001); and more workers recalled receiving sun safety messages (P < .001) and sun safety training (P <.001) compared to control organizations. Implementation was greater at larger than smaller intervention organizations for wide-brimmed hats (P = .009), long work pants (P = .017), and shade structures (P = .036). Older workers received the most written messages (P = .015). Conclusions: Sun Safe Workplaces appeared to produce actions by organizations to support employee sun safety. Large organizations may have processes, communication channels, and slack resources to achieve more implementation.