Content area
Abstract
Adolescent workers are at increased risk for injury. Health behavior theories provide a roadmap for designing school-based interventions to protect young workers. Pretest and posttest data from 2,503, eighth grade students were collected and structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to assess the utility of a modified theory of planned behavior (TPB) to examine adolescents’ occupational safety and health (OSH) knowledge, attitude, perceived behavioral control (self-efficacy) and behavioral intention. SEM results demonstrated the modified TPB model adequately fit the data. In general, path coefficients were statistically significant in directions consistent with the theory. The latent model constructs explained a higher proportion of variance than results from related adolescent health research. Knowledge had indirect effects to behavioral intention through attitude and self-efficacy. Our study fills a gap in the health behavior research by providing empirical evidence of the indirect role of knowledge acting on other theorized, TPB constructs. The present study is the first to support a modified TPB to examine adolescents’ OSH knowledge and perceptions, and it expands the evidence base for measuring and evaluating effective interventions to protect young workers.
Evidence about the factors that affect teachers’ adoption of occupational safety and health (OSH) interventions, such as the NIOSH Talking Safety curriculum, is sparse. Schools and teachers play an important role in preparing young people to engage in healthy behaviors, including in OSH. For this study, we developed a new measure based on a modified theory of planned behavioral (TPB) model; collected data from a sample of 242 middle school and high school teachers from three large school districts; and conducted factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) to examine main and interaction effects related to teachers’ knowledge, attitude, perceived behavioral control/self-efficacy (PBC/SE), and intention to teach OSH. Explanatory variables were also included in the analyses including teacher gender, prior work injury status, and subject area (academic, non-occupational career technical education [CTE] or occupational CTE). Results suggested that female teachers had lower PBC/SE on average than did male teachers to deliver OSH. For the knowledge measure, a statistically significant interaction effect was found between teacher subject and teacher gender. Male occupational CTE teachers demonstrated higher mean knowledge scores than all other male teachers in the sample. Participants who reported they had not been injured at work had statistically significantly higher OSH knowledge scores than those teachers who had experienced a job-related injury. Finally, CFA results indicated that the measures developed were valid and reliable for the sample, and reflected distinct TPB constructs with a separate knowledge factor. The present study provides the first-ever support for a modified TPB to explore middle and high school teachers’ perceptions of teaching OSH and sheds light on factors that may affect teachers’ uptake of OSH programs (i.e. Talking Safety).
