Objective To evaluate effectiveness of empowerment strategy on occupational health awareness and behavior of migrant workers.
Methods A questionnaire survey and a field observation were conducted in migrant workers selected from 12 random sampled small and medium-sized enterprises in a district of Shanghai. Descriptive statistics and χ2 test were used to compare the awareness and behaviors related to workplace health and safety among migrant workers between pre-and postinterventions.
Results The awareness of participating occupational health and safety (OHS) training, attending on-employment medical examination, participating OHS-related decision-making, sharing experience on OHS, understanding OHS policies, and noticing occupational disease information from public media were significantly improved after the intervention (P<0.05, P<0.01). Meanwhile, the behavior of claiming concrete OHS contract, attending on-employment medical examination, proposing OHS suggestion, and requesting personal protective equipment were also remarkably improved after the intervention (P<0.01). The number of migrant workers who made OHS consulting calls increased from 0 to 146 since the project launched.
Conclusion The awareness and behaviors of health protection and OHS decision making involvement among migrant workers have significantly improved after practicing empowerment strategy.
DownLoad: