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The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) runs a voluntary program that provides free and confidential advice to small and medium-sized establishments on approaches to avoiding workplace injuries and illnesses. This effort, known as the On-site Consultation Program (OSC), operates in addition to—but totally separate from—OSHA’s enforcement activities. Nationwide, OSC performs approximately 27,000 consultation visits per year at establishments that collectively employ more than 1.25 million workers.

Using content created by a third-party specialist in marketing, Abt Associates empirically tested several behavioral-theory-based marketing messages. The aim of the research was to determine which messages (if any) would increase establishments’ likelihood of requesting a consultation visit from OSC representatives in their state. Of particular interest were comparisons of requests generated by establishments receiving these new marketing messages to requests from establishments receiving OSHA’s existing marketing brochure as well as to those receiving no marketing from the study.

To implement this study, Abt developed multiple brochure options and companion email messages incorporating the four different theory-based messages. The newly developed brochures and companion emails, as well as the existing OSHA brochure, were sent to 18 randomly selected subsamples of establishments that comprised the study’s treatment groups. The mailing was conducted three times at one-month intervals. The rate of consultation requests made by establishments in each subgroup was tracked over a six-month follow-up period and then compared to the request rate in a control group. The report provides the study findings and the analysis concludes that this type of broad marketing strategy can substantially increase the rate of OSC requests, but that various theory-based brochures do not have an incremental impact beyond the standard OSHA informational brochure already in use.

Research Questions

• What is the effect of different messages on the take-up of the On-site Consultation Program relative to a no-brochure control?
• Are theory-based messages (i.e., those developed specifically for the OSC program by an outside marketing consultant and grounded in a distinct psychosocial theory of behavior change) more effective at increasing take-up than the current OSHA brochure, which was not explicitly grounded in behavior-change theory?
• Which combination of theory-based message and brochure format (exemplar) has the largest impact? And, relative to no marketing, how large is that impact?
• To what extent does sending messages via both regular mail and email have a different effect on take-up of the On-site Consultation Program relative to using only regular mail?
• Are the different messages more effective for establishments in specific high-hazard industry/ establishment groups than in others?

Key Takeaways

• The marketing strategies tested are effective. Mailing brochures nearly doubled the rate of requests, from 1.1 percent for establishments in the control group to 2.0 percent for establishments that were targeted with marketing materials.
• The content of these marketing messages does not matter. There is no detectable difference in impact between the new behavioral-theory-based messages and OSHA’s conventional brochure. None of the behavioral-theory-based messages had more impact than any other, and there is no difference in impact across the multiple formats that were tested with each message.
• Reinforcement through email does not improve the effectiveness of the marketing. Some establishments were sent three mailings of a brochure followed by three emails to reinforce the message; other establishments were sent the three mailings but no emails. There is no detectable difference in impact for establishments that were sent the email reinforcement.

Citation

Juras, R., Minzner, A., Klerman, J., Honnef, P., Dunton, L. (n.d.) Abt Associates. The Effect of Marketing on Demand for OSHA’s On-site Consultation Program: Marketing Study Final Report. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.