Western Mining Safety and Health Training Resource Center: Evidence-based Learning Laboratories

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PROJECT ABSTRACT Objective: To improve mining safety and health training in the western United States in order to reduce mining injuries, illnesses and fatalities. Background: Despite continued improvements over time, mining injuries and fatalities continue to occur in the mining industry, and reducing occupational illnesses remains challenging. Building on our past NIOSH miner training (U60) grants, we will expand our collaborative training programs with industry partners to offer competency-based health and safety training for miners, trainers, supervisors and health and safety personnel. Specific Aims: 1) Establish collaborative, evidence-based learning laboratories; 2) Improve health training; and 3) Develop new technologically driven training products. Study Design: We will expand our collaborative efforts with training consultants and company and labor-based training programs to develop learning laboratories incorporating our existing training resources and additional training products from NIOSH, other academic programs, and industry. We will also introduce and evaluate a promising new industrial athlete warm-up program shared by one of our industry partners which in an initial pilot study has greatly reduced workplace injuries. A mentorship program will be provided for learning laboratory leaders, along with a new evaluation infrastructure which includes a heterogeneous database capable of aggregating and analyzing data from a variety of sources and formats (including quantitative, qualitative, and multi-modal). Traumatic injury prevention will continue to be a part of all levels of training (miner, trainer, supervisors and health and safety personnel) and other NIOSH NORA cross-sector topics including musculoskeletal health, hearing loss prevention, respiratory health, heat-related illnesses and fatigue will be addressed through addition of health modules in existing and new training products. Building upon our past successes with experiential learning and highly engaging serious games, we will extend our suite of existing training products with new content focusing on NORA cross-sector topics and hazard mitigation. New modules will be developed that include an expansion pack for our Very Good Day hazard recognition card game and a new story-based scenario for the synthetic learning environment (SLE) Harry's Hazardous Day. Furthermore, we will create ‘hybrid’ games that serve as a bridge between traditional tabletop activities and full-scale SLEs using readily available mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets augmented by personalized digital content. Digital content will feature challenges, rewards, and scaffolding specific to each learner. Relevance to public health: The proposed program will serve to directly promote Research to Practice (r2p) with our industry partners. Intermediate outcomes will include: 1) improved safety and health practices; 2) workers empowered through active learning to be active participants in improving workplace safety and health; and 3) increased sharing of effective training programs. The end outcomes of the program will include a culture shift empowered by leadership and cohesive learning laboratory teams to reduce mining injuries, illnesses and fatalities.