| The federal Hazard Communication Standard was finalized in 1983. This landmark piece of legislative rulemaking was designed to inform workers of the potential hazards associated with the chemicals that they may be exposed to through the course of performing their jobs. While much study has been done examining issues related to compliance, globalization of hazard communication, and indirect indicators of the standards impact on employee behavior, there has been little study using direct dependent variables for evaluating the standards effectiveness on influencing employee risk management decision-making or triggering behavioral change. On February 11, 2002, the RCF industry signed a voluntary workplace protection program with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), entitled "PSP 2002." PSP, an acronym for "product stewardship program," among other things, provides mechanisms for quantitatively assessing the effectiveness of the risk management message being communicated to workers through product stewardship initiatives.; The parallel objective of the federal Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) and the RCF industries voluntary workplace protection program is to communicate to workers how to manage risk and work safely with potentially harmful materials. The measurement of a dependent variable, such as industrial hygiene employee exposure monitoring data, collected under a voluntary workplace protection program for RCF, was analyzed as a direct dependent variable for the study of behavioral changes in risk management decision-making. The primary objective of this research is to use data collected under the RCF industries product stewardship program to elucidate the diffusion of innovation. The product stewardship program employed multiple communication channels and process for the "diffusion" of information. The innovation being examined is the adaptation of risk management strategies designed to control exposure to airborne fiber.; This analysis of industrial hygiene monitoring data, collected under the RCF industries product stewardship program (PSP 2002), revealed that an industry driven, customer focused, interactive product stewardship program can serve as a catalyst for improved risk management decision making. At the same time, the data generated also provided a means to quantitatively assess the process of the diffusion of innovative risk management strategies. This study proved that the measurement of dependent variables, such as industrial hygiene monitoring data can be applied to the diffusion of innovation model to evaluate a change in risk management decision-making. |
