Team Project Summaries from 2004-7

1. Investigating Janitorial Chemical Hazards: "So Safe You Can Eat It"  
2. Overhead Drilling in the Construction Trades
3. Summertime Blues: Heat Stress in a Fabric-coating Factory
4. Heavenly Beds, Backbreaking Work: Hotel Room Cleaners
5. Day Laborers in Los Angeles  Survey of Hazards
6. Bricklayer Exposure to Silica Dust
7. Heat Illness among California Farmworkers
8. Chinese Restaurant Worker Hazards
9. New York Public Employees Federation (PEF) Violence Prevention Project
10. Health and Safety at Work: Immigrant Retail Workers in Brooklyn

Overhead Drilling in the Construction Trades

Project Sponsors and Mentors

• Ergonomics Program, University of California, Berkeley
• Occupational Health Branch, California Department of Health Services
• Union officers from Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 104, Plumbers Local 393, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 595

The Overhead Drilling Project investigated the musculoskeletal demands of drilling into concrete and metal. Overhead drilling is recognized as one of the most demanding tasks of sheet metal, plumbing, and electrical workers.

The team developed a detailed survey, interviewed over 25 workers and visited several construction sites to identify the most physically demanding aspects of overhead drilling. They identified specific tasks or postures that workers found most demanding, tools used, and worker suggestions to reduce the job demands. The final report by the interns is now being used by the Ergonomics Program to help shape a more in-depth research project in this area.

At the end of the summer the students noted, “The OHIP internship has been an enriching experience for us because it gave us the opportunity to discover how unions work and what is behind a construction site. It allowed us to build trust with workers and talk openly about different issues related to safety and overhead activities at the worksite. This experience also honed our creativity and communication skills. And we got to learn from each other.”

The team was comprised of a recent MPH graduate from the industrial hygiene program and a recent graduate with a BS degree in bioengineering, both from UC Berkeley. One of the OHIP interns later joined the staff of the UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program (LOSH), while the other completed her Masters in Public Health and now works in the environmental health unit of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).