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The authors ask you:
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has partnered with the National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA) to create Safe-in-Sound, an award for Excellence in Hearing Loss Prevention.
The Safe-In-Sound program is the result of a National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Public Health Project and is in its second year of funding, granted by 3 economic sectors: Manufacturing, Construction and Services.
The objectives of this initiative are to:
Currently there is no consensus on how to evaluate successes in hearing loss prevention programs and few publications exist on intervention effectiveness (El Dib et al., 2006).
In the report on NIOSH’s Hearing Loss Prevention Program by the National Academy of Sciences, it recommended NIOSH to “use information from evaluation of hearing loss prevention measures to guide program planning”, by using the information gained from evaluation of the effectiveness of its program activities to help identify approaches to hearing loss prevention that should be emphasized, revised, or possibly discontinued (IOM & NRC, 2006).
An external expert committee was convened in July 2007 to develop specific and explicit award evaluation criteria of excellence in hearing loss prevention for organizations from 3 different economic sectors (Manufacturing, Construction and Services) based on initial financial resources for the project. With support, eligibility may be expanded to include other economic sectors.
Three “Excellence in Hearing Loss Prevention” awards were created, one for each of the three economic sectors providing funding for the project (construction, manufacturing and service) and one “Innovation in Hearing Loss Prevention” award open to any economic sector or individual.
The expert committee hosted a podium session at the 33rd Annual NHCA National Conference on February 22, 2008 so that attendees could become familiar with the award and provide written or verbal comments. We have received some feedback by email and 24 of the 300 feedback forms distributed at the conference. Most of the feedback received was extremely positive (see Table 1). Several detailed comments and suggestions were offered. After analyzing the feedback the expert panel has finalized the application procedures for the 2009 awards and posted it online at the Safe-in-Sound website (www.safeinsound.us).
Figure 1 summarizes the traffic recorded by www.safeinsound.us while Table II summarizes the means we plan to use to evaluate the impact of the awards.
The first awards will be presented in February 2009. Evaluation and site visit criteria have been developed. These criteria encompass the seven component areas of hearing loss programs and are individually weighted to facilitate adaptive scoring which is necessary due to inherent differences among work sectors and employers. The application due date is September 1st, 2008.
Table I: Summary feedback received from external review regarding award concept and potential impact
| Question | Excellent | Good | Fair | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sector award concept | 66% | 34% | 0% | 0% |
| Innovation award concept | 79% | 21% | 0% | 0% |
| Site visit for award concept | 71% | 29% | 0% | 0% |
| Yes | No | Probably | ||
| Do you feel this award creation will be a useful tool to encourage the improvement and success of hearing loss prevention programs? | 92% | 4% | 4% | |
| Are you willing to promote awareness of the awards in your company/job? | 96% | 4% | N/A | |
| Do you know of a company or person eligible for one of these awards? | 46% | 54% | N/A | |
| Do you have ideas for sustaining this award past the initial three years of funding? If yes, please specify. | 9% | 71% | N/A | |
Figure 1: Traffic registered by the Safe-in-Sound website since its launching in February 2008.
Table II: Summary of Impact Indicators to be used
| Impact indicators |
|---|
| Interest generated by the award, measured by number of nominations |
| Number of requests for materials and information made available to the public |
| Critique and input received through the award website |
| Partnership with other groups |
| Sustainability of the award process itself |
A description of the key elements that contributed to the successful hearing loss prevention outcomes will be disseminated with marketing technical support to advance the information into a targeted public campaign.
New products will be developed based on the outcomes of the project. Users of the new products will be able to critique and send input through the Safe-in-Sound website.
The distribution of publications and hits to the website will be monitored to quantify interest and evaluate its reach. NIOSH and NHCA aim to partner with prospective users of the new products and will be responsible for continuously checking and updating the selection criteria for the award based on the lessons learned annually with the nomination and selection process throughout the duration of this project. Both institutions are seeking means for it to go on beyond the project’s duration.
El Dib, R.P., Verbeek, J., Atallah, A.N., Andriolo, R.B., Soares, B.G. 2006. Interventions to promote the wearing of hearing protection. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 19:CD005234.
IOM & NRC, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. 2006. Hearing Loss Prevention at NIOSH. Committee to Review the NIOSH Hearing Loss Research Program. Rpt. No.1, Reviews of Research Programs of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
The findings and conclusions in this poster are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Citations to Web sites external to NIOSH do not constitute NIOSH endorsement of the sponsoring organizations or their programs or products. Furthermore, NIOSH is not responsible for the content of these Web sites.
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