About the Report

Download Report

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.

The report describes the study where 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.

Research Questions

• What is the effect of different messages on the take-up of the OSC 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 OSC 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.

Research Gaps

• In sum, these results provide preliminary yet encouraging evidence that the high-rate letters increase requests for OSC consultations among the small and medium firms targeted by the high-rate letter. However, a replication would be needed to draw more definitive conclusions. (page 31)

Citation

Juras, R., Honnef, P., Klerman, J., Minzner, A., Shea, M. (2015). Evaluation of the OSHA On-site Consultation Program (OSC): The Effect of High-Rate Letters on OSC Requests - Final Report. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Download Report

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.