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Dissemination / Communications (Completed – 2009-2014)

Visualizing Safety: Creating Materials with Impact

Good research that goes nowhere can’t help anyone. The Communications Department’s task is to disseminate the findings, tools and products of �鶹��Ƶ researchers and ensure they reach audiences that can take action to make workers safer on the job.

An important way to reach those audiences is the trade press – commercial publications that serve construction contractors. Through targeted and tailored outreach to these publications, �鶹��Ƶ earned at least 50 stories in newspapers and trade magazines in the 2012 grant year, including three stories in McGraw-Hill’s Engineering News Record, the industry powerhouse. Nine of these articles were authored by �鶹��Ƶ researchers so they could speak directly to contractors in the pages of publications like Equipment Today, Rental Equipment Register, Occupational Health and Safety, and EHS Today.

Another 20 of the articles were generated from stories appearing in our monthly e-newsletter – the �鶹��Ƶ UPDATE – avidly read by a growing roster of industry opinion leaders. The newsletter, which began two years ago with a distribution list of fewer than 1,300, is now delivered monthly to more than 2,300 subscribers spanning the government, contractor, union, academic, and media worlds. (Are you subscribed? You should be.)

The fifth edition of �鶹��Ƶ’s flagship reference publication, The Construction Chart Book, appeared in April 2013. The department guided design and production of the book from Word files and Powerpoint slides to its final form. The department’s publicity efforts broke past distribution records, exhausting almost the entire print run in a single year and feeding the year’s highest web traffic to the book’s online home at www.cpwr.com.

Meanwhile, continuing an effort from 2011, the department updated and printed seven more new image-driven Hazard Alert cards for safety training. The folding pocket-size cards cover topics like ladder safety, noise and the new Hazard Communication symbols. The renovation of these cards, combined with targeted promotion to contractors and union safety trainers via email and postal mail promotions, caused demand for the cards to skyrocket. From 2010-2011, �鶹��Ƶ received only three external requests for a total of 1,052 cards; in 2012-2013 we received 145 external requests for 51,208 of the cards.

�鶹��Ƶ’s website got a new look, when the redesigned site was launched in late September. Changes to the structure plus the image-driven Publications section have improved the user experience.

And yet, there was much more, such as our restructured eLCOSH.org, which made its debut in October 2012. Its new navigation system has proven popular with users who enter from its home page and use its search tools to access materials in this free national repository of construction safety and health
information. In 2013, the site broke 15 million pageviews since its launch in 2000. In the social media world, the eLCOSH Facebook page has developed an avid community of active followers and more than 10,000 Facebook users “like” the page.

Our new e-newsletter, the �鶹��Ƶ UPDATE, has rapidly become a critical source of information for opinion leaders in construction occupational safety and health. Distributed monthly to more than 2,000 recipients in business, academia, government, labor and the media, the UPDATE keeps key stakeholders abreast of major findings and new �鶹��Ƶ publications and products. The UPDATE has also become a trusted source for the trade press, with stories frequently appearing in industry magazines and in dozens of electronic newsletters. At least 26 stories published in the trade press can be traced to the UPDATE since its September 2011 debut. Overall, 2012 was a banner year for �鶹��Ƶ in the industry press, with 48 documented appearances in trade outlets – triple the number identified in the prior year.