Next week, Dr. Ed Dieterle and Dr. Shane Thompson will present, "Evaluations of Worksite Safety Policies and Practices Using Administrative Data Collected by the Occupational Safety And Health Administration," at the National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics (NAWRS) 2015 Annual Workshop in Atlanta, GA.
As part of its work for the U.S. Department of Labor, Summit studied and analyzed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) Federal Agency Targeting (FEDTARG) program, which chooses Federal worksites for safety inspections. Summit's research revealed that Federal worksites inspected under the FEDTARG program had, on average, seven fewer lost time cases (LTCs) in the year after inspection than they did in the year before inspection. (This before-and-after difference in LTCs is a regression-adjusted estimate, not a measure of the causal effects of FEDTARG inspections.) In addition to informing OSHA on policies and practices, Summit's study demonstrates the opportunities and challenges of using administrative data to better understand the characteristics and behaviors of worksites.
Dr. Ed Dieterle is Director of both Program Evaluation and Litigation at Summit. Dr. Shane Thompson is a Summit Consultant with expertise in program evaluation and quantitative methodologies. The NAWRS Annual Workshop is a conference that promotes the use of statistical analysis in human service programs. See the 2015 NAWRS Annual Workshop agenda online here.
