3.3.1. Intervention Fidelity and Uptake

Soft Tissue Injury Prevention Program: Foreman training ranged from 25–45 min per site, and was delivered as per the protocol on the five intervention sites. The number of foreman who attended per site varied (median: 6; range: 5–25). Baseline participation rates for the project launch (range: 25–93%) and orientation (range: 75–90%) also varied significantly across sites. The number of ergonomic inspections and feedback reports differed greatly across the five intervention sites (median: 15; range: 0–19). At best, sites had three ergonomic observations per week during the six weeks of the program. At worst, one site completed no inspections and feedback reports to the foreman, due to severe weather conditions causing the site to shut down during the intervention period. Many of the improvements recorded concentrated on how workers were setting up their own work areas rather than systems level changes, e.g., getting equipment off the ground and performing tasks at heights around waist level, rather than below the knee.

Health Week and Coaching: 45 workers (14%) signed up for health coaching. Most workers had favorable responses to engaging in the toolbox talks during health week. However, only 7 out of the 45 workers who signed up for health coaching participated in the first phone call, and only three completed four weeks of health coaching.

Workers signed up for health coaching for dietary behaviors, physical activity and smoking cessation. No workers signed up for coaching on soft tissue injury prevention. Qualitatively, workers reported getting benefit from the smoking cessation toolbox talks. Providing NRT kits was popular; however, due to privacy issues and poor follow-up rates, we were unable to link the NRT distribution to the surveys and effects on smoking quit rates. One worker reported: "I think tobacco was good for me and my guys. Most of them smoke, so I think it was good for them. The NRT inspired some of the workers to give quitting a try." Other topics of interest raised in the focus groups included stress management, alcohol consumption and appropriate pain management.

There were no adverse events reported by the participants for participating in either StIPP or Health Week.
