Miriam Weil, MPH, ScD Work Environment Policy UMASS Lowell

*Funding for this project was provided by NIOSH through the

Harvard ERC and by the National Science Foundation  

UMASS  Lowell  12/12/2011  

Research  Ques+on  � How can the internet help provide timely and useful

health and safety information to people working with chemicals around academic laboratories?

� Hypothesis: For web-based chemical hazard information to be useful to researchers and workers at universities, it must be embedded so that action can be taken to reduce or

prevent exposures.

UMASS  Lowell  12/12/2011  

What is Embeddedness?  � Three elements determine whether a message is

“embedded” in the users’ decision-making process:

� Relevance: pertinent to user decisions. � Compatibility: with the user’s language and

‘socioeconomic’ or workplace culture. � Accessibility : easily found and consistent with the

conventional patterns for finding information.

�  Source: Fung Graham and Weil, 2007

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Par+cipants    � Subjects:

� Students (17) � Laboratory Staff (18)

� Sites: � UMASS Lowell � Harvard University

UMASS  Lowell  12/12/2011  

Method:  Exercise  Format  

For 2 and 3 : Rate the relevance, compatibility, accessibility of each website towards pursuing the problem using a 5 point rating scale: where 1 is worst and 5 is best

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Four parts to the experiment: 1. Pre-test- Background questions 2. Ethylene Glycol hypothetical question 3. Acetonitrile hypothetical question 4. Exit interview

Exercise  Format  Rate the relevance, compatibility, accessibility of

each website towards pursuing the problem using the following rating scale:

�  1 Disagree strongly �  2 Disagree �  3 Neither agree nor disagree �  4 Agree �  5 Agree strongly

UMASS  Lowell  12/12/2011  

Websites  in  the  Study  ATSDR   Google   Tox  Town   ICSC   NJ  RTK   EWG   CHE  

U.S.  Govt.  -­‐  Centers  for  Disease  Control    

Publically  Held    Company    

U.S.  Govt.  National  Library    of  Medicine      

Intl.  Agencies:    UNEP,  ILO    

State  of  New      Jersey  Dept  of    Heath  and  Senior  Services  

NGO:  Env.  Working  Group  -­‐  Research,  Advocacy    

NGO  :  Collab.  for  Health  and  Env.  –  Research,    Advocacy  

UMASS  Lowell  12/12/2011  

Results:  Average  Website  Ra1ngs  

8  

Relevance   Compatibility   Accessibility  

Average Website Ratings

9  

*  indicates    significant    at  0.05  level  

Controlling for work status and web searching history. Measured occurrence: An increase of 1=increase in revisit.    

Rela+onships  between  ra+ngs  and  stated  inten+on  to  revisit  

Relationships between ratings and stated intentions to revisit

The  Google  Effect    

� Google is the default. � May not find best information. � Lab culture requires speed. � Miss other valuable sites  

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Findings/Conclusions  � Criteria  rankings  influenced  favorable  choices.    

� ATSDR,  NJ  and  ICSC  rated  highly.  � The  internet  can  provide  helpful  and  useful  informa+on.  

� Chemical  safety  sites  require  useful  content  and  a  high  Google  ranking  

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