Suchergebnisse

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.

PURPOSE: Implementation of employer sun safety actions was assessed in a 2-year follow-up to an occupational sun protection policy intervention. DESIGN: 2-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. SUBJECTS: 63 local government organizations (participation=64%) and 330 frontline supervisors and 1,454 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 were conducted using regression models and adjusting for clustering where appropriate, with alpha criterion set at p=0.05 (two-tailed). RESULTS: At intervention worksites, more SSW messages (p<0.001) and sun safety items (p=0.025) were observed; more frontline supervisors reported organizations provided free/reduced price sunscreen (p=0.005) and communicated about sun safety (p<0.001); and more workers recalled receiving sun safety messages (p<0.001) and sun safety training (p<0.001) compared to control organizations. Implementation was greater at larger than smaller intervention organizations for wide-brimmed hats (p=0.009), long work pants (p=0.017), and shade structures (p=0.036). Older workers received the most written messages (p=0.015). CONCLUSIONS: SSW 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.

Purpose.Industry-based strategies for dissemination of an evidence-based occupational sun protection program, Go Sun Smart (GSS), were tested.Design.Two dissemination strategies were compared in a randomized trial in 2004–2007.Setting.The North American ski industry.Subjects.Ski areas in the United States and Canada (n = 69) and their senior managers (n = 469).Intervention.Employers received GSS through a basic dissemination strategy (BDS) from the industry's professional association that included conference presentations and free starter kits. Half of the areas also received the enhanced dissemination strategy (EDS), in which project staff met face-to-face with managers and made ongoing contacts to support program use.Measures.Observation of program materials in use and managers' reports on communication about sun protection.Analysis.The effects of two alternative dissemination strategies were compared on program use using PROC MIXED in SAS, adjusted for covariates using one-tailed p values.Results.Ski areas receiving the EDS used more GSS materials (x̄ = 7.36) than those receiving the BDS (x̄ = 5.17; F = 7.82, p < .01). Managers from more areas receiving the EDS reported communicating about sun protection in employee newsletters/flyers (x̄ = .97, p = .04), in guest e-mail messages (x̄ = .75, p = .02), and on ski area Web sites (x̄ = .38, p = .02) than those receiving the BDS (x̄ = .84, .50, .15, respectively).Conclusion.Industry professional associations play an important role in disseminating prevention programs; however, active personal communication may be essential to ensure increased implementation fidelity.

OBJECTIVE: To generate a national multiple sclerosis (MS) prevalence estimate for the United States by applying a validated algorithm to multiple administrative health claims (AHC) datasets. METHODS: A validated algorithm was applied to private, military, and public AHC datasets to identify adult cases of MS between 2008 and 2010. In each dataset, we determined the 3-year cumulative prevalence overall and stratified by age, sex, and census region. We applied insurance-specific and stratum-specific estimates to the 2010 US Census data and pooled the findings to calculate the 2010 prevalence of MS in the United States cumulated over 3 years. We also estimated the 2010 prevalence cumulated over 10 years using 2 models and extrapolated our estimate to 2017. RESULTS: The estimated 2010 prevalence of MS in the US adult population cumulated over 10 years was 309.2 per 100,000 (95% confidence interval [CI] 308.1–310.1), representing 727,344 cases. During the same time period, the MS prevalence was 450.1 per 100,000 (95% CI 448.1–451.6) for women and 159.7 (95% CI 158.7–160.6) for men (female:male ratio 2.8). The estimated 2010 prevalence of MS was highest in the 55- to 64-year age group. A US north-south decreasing prevalence gradient was identified. The estimated MS prevalence is also presented for 2017. CONCLUSION: The estimated US national MS prevalence for 2010 is the highest reported to date and provides evidence that the north-south gradient persists. Our rigorous algorithm-based approach to estimating prevalence is efficient and has the potential to be used for other chronic neurologic conditions.