Home care workers unaware of risks
Safety training, outreach needed
Here’s a safety equation that doesn’t compute well: A high risk of injury with a low awareness of hazards.
That is the profile of the non-clinical home health care worker, according to a recent study in Alameda County, CA. Surveys of 317 home health workers found that 60% (185) of them had been injured in the past year, but only five had reported the injury. Of the 51 workers who handled sharps, 30% had experienced a needle-stick.
Yet they did not view their jobs as hazardous, says Laura Stock, MPH, associate director of the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, who presented the information at a recent conference of the American Public Health Association.
“People don’t tend to think of their job as risky, even when they’re getting injured,” says Stock.
When the home health workers were asked about job hazards, they mentioned risks to their patients, she says. “They’re not oriented to think about their own health and safety,” she says.
It’s important to provide health and safety training to workers in their native language, says Stock, who is developing a handbook on “Caring for Yourself While You Care for Others,” and an awareness campaign. The research is supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Cincinnati, which will help disseminate training materials.
Home care workers generally don’t think of someone’s home as a dangerous place. But there were toxic chemicals, heavy laundry, patient handling and sharps hazards, and even tobacco smoke, mold and animal bites.
“I think it’s important for every workplace to have an explicit program in which they encourage people to report [injuries] and they make it clear there will be no reprisals,” Stock says. “It’s in the interest of every employer. They have the opportunity to eliminate hazards, thereby preventing future injuries from occurring.”
The home health care workforce is among the fastest growing in the country, which makes outreach to this group of workers even more important, Stock says.
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