The DFCI studies represent an unusual opportunity for public health researchers to collaborate with partners in organized labor and industry. The grants will support studies examining smoking behaviors, smoking cessation, job hazards, and obesity for workers in cooperation with the Massachusetts statewide apprenticeship program for the building trades unions, and nationally with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the Motor Freight Carriers Association (MFCA).

Smoking Cessation with Trade Union Apprenticeship Programs

This study will build on a recently completed DFCI small-scale study conducted in collaboration with union-based building trades apprenticeship programs, that addressed the hazards of smoking behaviors in the context of job-related risks, such as exposure to toxic solvents that can increase health risks associated with smoking. The study confirmed that this population of workers is at very high risk of smoking in comparison to the general US population, and smoking quit rates look promising.

"The aim of our research is to collaborate with these unions, building on their own training programs in health and safety and strong sense of community, to study the effectiveness of a smoking cessation intervention for their apprentices," says the study's principal investigator DFCI's Elizabeth Barbeau, ScD, MPH and Assistant Professor at Harvard School of Public Health. "We will focus on the worker's knowledge and concern about the dual threat of occupational hazards and smoking."

This study extends the work of the Organized Labor Tobacco Control Network, created in 2001 by DFCI, with seed financial support from the American Legacy Foundation and led by Barbeau to create a partnership betwe
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Contact: Janet Haley Dubow
janet_haley@dfci.harvard.edu
617-632-5665
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
1-Nov-2004