Working with Workers: Talking about Workplace Safety and Health

This module was developed as a collaborative project by the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment and the Make the Road New York training program for Community Health Workers. This module was included as a 1-day class within a comprehensive training program for Community Health Workers. However, it can also be used as part of a 1-day continuing education program for working Community Health Workers. It was developed with input from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Pietra Check and Leslie Nickels). It was developed and tested with four different cohorts of students over 3 years.

The goal of the module is to introduce Community Health Workers to the field of occupational safety and health. It helps them to identify when work might be a contributing factor to a health complaint and provides them with ideas for how they might assist clients in reducing these exposures.

Complete Module (Trainers Guide, Handouts, Powerpoint)

Power Point Presentation

Steven B. Markowitz, MD, DrPh

Project Director

Tel: (718) 670-4184 / Fax: (718) 670-4167 / Email: smarkowitz@qc.cuny.edu

Steven Markowitz, M.D. is a physician specializing in occupational and environmental medicine. Dr. Markowitz is currently Director of the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment and Professor of Environmental Sciences at Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY). He is a faculty member of the CUNY School of Public Health and Adjunct Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he was on the full- time faculty from 1986 to 1998. He received his undergraduate education at Yale University and his medical degree and doctorate in epidemiology from Columbia University. Dr. Markowitz is board-certified in occupational and environmental medicine and internal medicine.

Dr. Markowitz currently directs the Worker Health Protection Program, a medical screening program for former Department of Energy workers who built the nuclear weapon arsenal of the United States. This program is co-sponsored by the United Steelworkers International Union and the Atomic Trades & Labor Council. This program conducts the largest early lung cancer detection project in occupational health in the country through the application of low-dose helical CAT scanning. To date, over 13,000 workers who were exposed to asbestos, uranium, and other lung carcinogens have been screened for lung cancer in this program.

Dr. Markowitz previously directed the Queens College World Trade Center Health Program , which monitored the health of over 2,000 WTC workers and provided treatment services to WTC workers with 9/11-related health conditions.

Dr. Markowitz' research interests center on occupational and environmental disease surveillance; occupational cancer; asbestos-related diseases; and the burden and costs of occupational diseases and injuries. Dr. Markowitz is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. He is Associate Editor with William Rom MD of a major textbook, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, (4nd Edition, Lippincott William and Wilkens, New York, 2007, 1884 pp.). Dr. Markowitz is on the Board of Scientific Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Toxicology Program; the World Trade Center Scientific and Technical Advisory Board of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; and the Oversight Committee for the Occupational Health Clinics, New York State Department of Health.

Working with Workers: Talking about Workplace Safety and Health

A training module for Community Health Workers

Steven B. Markowitz, MD, DrPh

Project Director

Tel: (718) 670-4184 / Fax: (718) 670-4167 / Email: smarkowitz@qc.cuny.edu

Sherry L. Baron, MD

Program Coordinator

Tel: (718) 670-4100 / Fax: (718) 670-4167 / Email: sbaron@qc.cuny.edu

Isabel Cuervo, PHD

Sr. Research Associate

Tel: (718) 670-4100 / Fax: (718) 670-4167 / Email: icuervo@qc.cuny.edu

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