EMERGING PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES TO ERGONOMIC INTERVENTIONS IN THE CONSTRUCTION-INDUSTRY

The Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel (CA/T) construction project in Boston is the largest and most costly highway construction project eve r undertaken in the United States. The Construction Occupational Healt h Project (COHP) of the Work Environment Department at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell was established to conduct exposure assessment and to develop, introduce, and evaluate interventions in the areas of ergonomics and industrial hygiene on the CA/T project. For both polit ical and practical reasons, COHP is using a participatory approach to intervention in the construction industry, The research process is emp loying participation at all the levels of the construction hierarchy i n the form of various advisory groups. These advisory groups have been formed from existing joint labor-management advisory committees and a re presently engaged in two participatory intervention activities: (1) evaluations of intervention ideas, and (2) comparisons of safety syst ems. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.