Outputs and Transfer - Research Goal 1.9:
Develop a core curriculum in occupational safety and health for high school and post secondary students that includes a module on hearing loss prevention
The national curriculum is targeted for publication by January 2006. It will be available electronically and in print from NIOSH and interested partners. In partnership with the NHCA, activity kits to accompany the “Dangerous Decibels” module will be available to teachers upon request. A working group of project advisors will continue collaborations to ensure widespread dissemination, adoption, and use of the materials. That group includes OSHA, state departments of education, career tech associations such as SkillsU.S.A, academia, community groups, hearing health trade associations, hearing health professional associations, and NIOSH.
Outputs related to this nationwide OSH curriculum effort are identified in the supporting evidence section of this chapter.
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Intermediate Outcomes
- At the June 12, 2005 meeting of the State Directors of Career Technical Education, support for the draft curriculum was unanimous. NIOSH was invited to submit the product for review and acceptance by that body, and the curriculum was formally endorsed in November, 2005. The HLR program anticipates that after final revisions are complete, the curriculum will be adopted and integrated into Career Clusters programming in each state. Nearly every high school student in the United States takes at least a career exploration class early in their high school program, and thus, could be exposed to this curriculum in that context as well as through health classes or science classes.
- The U.S. Job Corps, a residential program serving at-risk youth, reviewed the draft curriculum and has already adopted portions of it to train their students. They intend to adopt the entire curriculum including the hearing loss prevention module when the curriculum is finalized.
- In collaboration with NIOSH and other partners, the OSHA Training Institute is using parts of the curriculum to develop e-training tools. OSHA has already placed a hearing loss prevention e-tool using aspects of the curriculum on its web site: http://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm/noise/index.html. This site also links to the NIOSH noise and hearing loss prevention web pages.