# Presentation: 051175

## Building Tribal Capacity for a Workplace Safety Task ForceJohn J. Schmitz REHS/RSTucson Area Indian Health Service

## Project Goal Reduce workplace injuries through the development of a practical District Safety Task Force. 

## Background

-    The Tohono O’Odham Nation (TON) is geographically the second largest
- Indian Reservation in the US
-    TON is located in South Central Arizona and consists of approximately 25,940 members (approximately 1800 members reside inside Mexico)   San Lucy District is one of
- eleven seats of authority

**Notes:**
Providing high-quality continuing education opportunities for professional staff is an important goal for program managers.  The Indian Health Service Injury Prevention Program (IHS IPP) sponsors many courses:>Nationally (Env Health Support Branch) >Area level >Fellowship

These costs are particularly great for Indian Health Service staff, because of their wide geographic distribution and recent cutbacks in travel and training dollars.

Are community needs being met? Many communities, for instance, are not receiving sufficient support in a wide range of injury prevention areas and are becoming at increasingly high risk for such injuries as suicide, diabetes, motorvehicle crashes  and gang violence time away from family 
time away from work  
responsibilities. 

## Slide 4

## Background cont.

- This project began
- with a question
- &
- was answered
- by opportunity

## Background Concerns

- Safety was an issue of concern for  employee’s welfare
- Consistently low annual totals were reported for injuries
- Leadership sought safety training resources with an emphasis in OSHA requirements

## Initial Actions

- Meet with Mentor(‘s)		a. Designed an Outline P.O.A.	b. Engineer IN Wisdom	c. Engineer OUT Pitfalls
- Finalize Topic with DistrictReceive necessary Approvals
- Finalize Methods & Conduct Literature Reviews

**Methods**

-  Selection of two OSHA MS Power Point Presentations
-  Two Safety telephone conferences (Area IP Coordinator Funded)

**Notes:**
NCSPT ( Harvard Injury Control Research Center and the Education Development Center) had developed
The National Center for Suicide Prevention and Training (NCSPT) had 3 online workshops, all available on the Internet without charge.
1 of these contained information about obtaining, analyzing, and reporting data- a pervasive topic in public health and applicable to community programs. 
IHS IPP is increasing its focus on intentional injuries--domestic violence, suicide, assaults.
the course was developed by national experts in epidemiology and sociology.

## Methods Cont.

- OSHA Presentations (web based)	a.  Introduction to OSHA	b.  Hazard Communication
- These MS Power Point programs shared the most frequently _*awarded*_ OSHA violations which greatly assisted in selecting which direction to initiate our actions

## Methods Cont.

- Hazard Communication *(Most frequently awarded OHSA Violation)*	a.  Chemical Inventory (OSHA web-site 	  	     provided the Inventory Sheets)	b.  MSDS Sheets _*(seri.uvm.edu/)*_	c.  Personal Protective Equipment (P.P.E.’s)

## Methods Cont.

- Two telephone (speaker phone) safety
- conferences were conducted as
- adjunct training for supervisors.
- 	a.  Stopping Everyday Injuries in Your
- 		     Workplace (Injury Evaluations)
- 	b.  Preventing Injuries (Soft Tissue 		      	    Trauma)
**	****(Progressive Business Conferences (800) 964-6033)**

## Methods Cont.

- Two hands-on Safety Surveys were
- conducted with the supervisors
- (The IHS Primary Care Provider,
-               March 1995 Volume 20, Number 3)

## Methods Cont.

- Two teams were drawn up and surveys were conducted on separate days.
- Some of the buildings surveyed were overlapped and both teams had the opportunity to compare discrepancies.

## Methods Cont.

- Lessons learned from the two Safety Surveys were assessed regarding:
- 	a. Friendly Competition injected interest
- 	b. Safety Recommendations
- 	c. P.P.E. needs (adjunct to info on MSDS)
- 	d. Policy &Procedures
- 	e. Future Training needs

## Methods Cont.

- Other Safety related areas assessed:
- a. Injury Reporting & AZ Workman’s Compb. OSHA Injury Reporting requirementsc. OSHA Form 300 (injury log) (adopted)d. NN Occupational Health & Safety Act

## Methods Cont.

- Other Safety related areas assessed:
- e. NFPA & Life Safety Codef. 12 new Safety Policies drafted for reviewg. Safety Seat Belt Survey was conductedh. Safety Task Force Committee meetings     have been added (monthly) to the    weekly Supervisors Committee agenda

## Electrical Safety

- Electrical Safety was identified as
-  a future need

## Conclusions and Recommendations

- A new found awareness for worker safety was kindled
- An appreciation was developed for the MSDS system and the fact that rather than a hindrance to be endured, it is a valuable tool that exists solely for our protection
- It was the desire from the start to develop this appreciation and it would appear that goal was achieved