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Best Practices Evaluation Competition

• Purpose:
  
  In keeping with our conference theme of "healthy and safe work through research, practice, and partnerships," we are especially interested in hearing about the translation of research to practice as exemplified by workplace programs, policies, practices, case experiences, and other efforts to prevent stress in today's workplace.
  
  The purpose of the competition is to recognize outstanding evaluations of “best practices” that partner researchers with industry and labor to prevent occupational injuries and illnesses, and to promote safety and health at work.

Best Practices: The evaluation may be of any type of “best practice” in a program, intervention, study, or other activity relevant to Occupational Health Psychology, from a simple change in work organization at a single worksite to: 1) a comprehensive re-organization of the work processes, 2) a program of OSH training, or 3) policies or regulations applied throughout a corporation, industry, state, or nation, such as an OSHA standard. Please refer to the conference topic list to see the full range of eligible topics in Occupational Health Psychology.

Eligibility: All submissions to Work, Stress, and Health 2008, regarding examples of best practices that complete the scientific peer review process and are accepted for the meeting are eligible to enter the best practices evaluation competition.

Important note: Former members of the NORA Intervention Effectiveness Research team, current members of the Work, Stress, and Health 2008 conference planning team, and the three winners of the 2006 intervention evaluation competition may not be authors or consultants on papers considered in the competition.

Presentation: Three finalists will be identified prior to the conference and one of the three papers will be selected as the competition winner. The presenting authors for all three finalist papers will be asked to describe their findings in a special session at the conference. All competition participants are encouraged to submit their papers to the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Submissions to JOHP are separate from this competition and will undergo the normal journal review.

Evaluation Competition Criteria: Manuscripts will be scored on how comprehensively the best practices are described and the results are reported. The scoring criteria emphasize the quality of the evaluation methodology used to assess the effectiveness of the best practices. The specific topic areas of the best practices are not scored. All of the following criteria will be considered in the review of papers for the competition. However, it is neither anticipated nor required that any single paper will address every criterion:

I. Description of the need for the best practices, including: a) the health and safety problems addressed, and b) the injury and illness consequences for workers. Important note: severity of the problem is not a scoring criterion; this prevents a best practice to prevent fatalities from displacing a good evaluation of a comprehensive health promotion program.

II. Description of the best practices in the workplace, including: a) the basic descriptive information regarding the practices and the context in which they are implemented, including any study objectives or hypotheses, b) the organizational level(s) of workplaces included in the best practices, c) the process of development of the practices, program, or intervention, including: participation of workers and management and of the research/evaluation team in developing the practices, and d) innovative approaches and noteworthy methods of addressing a problem.

III. Evaluation study design and methods, i.e. the plan for implementing the best practices and for the evaluation of this implementation. This section includes: a) the overall quality of the research design, b) ethical considerations, c) population, sample, recruiting participants, assignment to groups, and estimates of power, d) measurements (both quantitative and qualitative), and e) a plan to permit process/efficacy evaluation results to modify the best practices program or intervention.

IV. Evaluation study results and analysis, including a) the quality and comprehensiveness of the results, and b) the quality of the results with respect to the overall findings and conclusions. Important note: negative results, null results, and significant results may all be reported. The results will be evaluated for clarity, comprehensiveness, and degree of support for the overall findings. In short, significant results are not a prerequisite for this competition.

V. Implications of the evaluation results for occupational health psychology, including placing this study into the broader context of occupational health psychology, b) limitations, c) recommendations for improvements to the best practices, d) recommendations for improved evaluation studies, and e) new research questions.

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