Suchergebnisse

Objective: To analyze the social representations of occupational risks involving students in the area of health. Method: Exploratory research with 160 students from nursing, medicine and dentistry, through interviews. The data were processed in ALCESTE 4.8 and lexical analysis done by descending hierarchical classification. Results: In four semantic classes, namely: occupational risks involving students in the area of health, the work environment and occupational risks, exposure to accidents with sharps and adoption of standard precautions as biosecurity measures. Conclusion: Students healthcare represent occupational risks, such as a concern for the prevention of cross infection in the workplace, should both professionals and students of health, adopt standard precautions and biosecurity measures in the environment work.

The author constructs economic profiles of Protestants and Catholics based upon an examination of occupational and, to a lesser extent, industrial characteristics. In this task the Hall-Jones scale is used as a guide to classify more than two hundred occupational groupings. The religious composition of certain significant occupations are also examined in more detail in order to illustrate salient differences between the two groups. In particular, major variances between Protestants and Catholics, both at the manual and non-manual level, are highlighted and compared. Previous studies of Northern Ireland have frequently attributed the disunity of the working class to the prevalence of politico-religious antagonisms, giving minimal attention to possible occupational differences. This article provides evidence which might support an additional explanation for the failure of class organisations to bridge the religious divide: prominent occupational differences reinforced the religious cleavage thereby providing an added barrier to reconciliation.

Un survey sur questionnaire de trois cent quarante cinq (345) Ctudiants de dixikme annCe, provenant d'un milieu socio‐kconomique hétérogé et fr6quentant les Ccoles secondaires polyvalentes d'un centre métropolitain fut réalisé afin de mesurer le niveau de convergence qui existe dans trois secteurs différents des conceptions Ctudiantes de leur avenir professionnel: (1) la convergence entre les valeurs professionnelles d'un étudiant et le choix de sa profession; (2) la convergence entre les aspirations hancikres professionnelles de l'ttudiant et ses gains monitaires probables; (3) et la convergence entre le choix professionnel d'un Ctudiant et celui de ses parents.Les rksultats dtmontrent que les Ctudiants provenant de strates socio‐écono‐miques supkrieures obtiennent une meilleure convergence par rapport aux trois dimensions que ceux qui viennent de milieux soci‐économiques infirieurs. Des différences quant au sexe des rbpondants apparaissent seulement chez les étudiants des classes Cwnomiques défavorisées. On déduit de ces rhsultats quelques considerations se rapportant h la carribre professionnelle de ces étudiants. A questionnaire survey of 345 tenth‐grade students in a socioeconomically heterogeneous, multi‐program urban high school was conducted to measure the amount of congruence in three areas of the students' conceptions of their future work lives: (1) congruence between a student's occupational values and occupa‐ tional choice; (2) coqpence between a student's financial expectations of his work and his actual likely earnings; and (3) congruence between a student's oc‐cupational choice and his parents' occupational choice for him.Findings showed that students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds experienced more congruence in all three dimensions than students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Sex differences were important only among students of lower socioeconomic background. Some implications for the future work life of these students are drawn.

This study explores the relationship between individuals' risk tolerance and occupational injuries. We analyze data from a national representative survey of U.S. workers that includes information about injuries, risk tolerance, cognitive and noncognitive attributes, and risky behaviors. We measure risk tolerance through questions regarding individuals' willingness to gamble on their lifetime income. We estimate zero‐inflated count models to assess the role played by such measures on workers' recurrent injuries. We discuss some implications of our results for future research and occupational safety policies.Our results highlight the concurrent and changing role played by individual, work, and environmental factors in explaining recurrent incidents. They show that risk tolerance affects recurrent injuries, although not in the direction that proponents of the concept of proneness would expect. Our measure of risk aversion shows that individuals who are somewhat more risk tolerant have fewer recurrent injuries than those who are risk averse. But the estimated relationship is U‐shaped, not monotonic and, therefore, not easy to predict. At the same time, we find that individuals' "revealed risk preferences"—specific risky behaviors—are related to higher injury probabilities. Demanding working conditions, measures of socioeconomic status, health, and safety problems experienced by workers during their youth remain among the most important factors explaining the phenomena of recurrent injuries. So our results contribute also to the important debate about the relationship between health and socioeconomic status.

Criteria for risk assessment are listed in the ordinance of the Minister of Health on harmful biological agents in the workplace and the protection of workers exposed to those agents. Accordingly, risk assessment should be based on all available information including classification of biological agents, risk groups 2-4; information on diseases which may be contracted as a result of work; information on diseases from which workers are found to be suffering and which have a direct connection with their work; recommendations from competent sanitary authorities; National Labour Inspectorate; and occupational medicine services.

Assessments of occupational exposures to chemicals are generally based upon the practice of compliance testing in which the probability of compliance is related to the exceedance [γ, the likelihood that any measurement would exceed an occupational exposure limit (OEL)] and the number of measurements obtained. On the other hand, workers' chronic health risks generally depend upon cumulative lifetime exposures which are not directly related to the probability of compliance. In this paper we define the probability of "overexposure" (θ) as the likelihood that individual risk (a function of cumulative exposure) exceeds the risk inherent in the OEL (a function of the OEL and duration of exposure). We regard θ as a relevant measure of individual risk for chemicals, such as carcinogens, which produce chronic effects after long‐term exposures but not necessarily for acutely‐toxic substances which can produce effects relatively quickly. We apply a random‐effects model to data from 179 groups of workers, exposed to a variety of chemical agents, and obtain parameter estimates for the group mean exposure and the within‐ and between‐worker components of variance. These estimates are then combined with OELs to generate estimates of γ and θ. We show that compliance testing can significantly underestimate the health risk when sample sizes are small. That is, there can be large probabilities of compliance with typical sample sizes, despite the fact that large proportions of the working population have individual risks greater than the risk inherent in the OEL. We demonstrate further that, because the relationship between θ and γ depends upon the within‐ and between‐worker components of variance, it cannot be assumed a priori that exceedance is a conservative surrogate for overexposure. Thus, we conclude that assessment practices which focus upon either compliance or exceedance are problematic and recommend that employers evaluate exposures relative to the probabilities of overexposure.

The Self‐Directed Job Search Materials Package was developed for classroom instructors for use with their students in occupational skills training classes. The materials, which consist of a student manual and a related cassette series, are designed to be used concurrently with students involved in occupational skills training so that they can acquire the knowledge and confidence needed to obtain jobs.