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Background Correctional Officers (COs) have among the highest injury rates and poorest health of all the public safety occupations. The HITEC-2 (Health Improvement Through Employee Control-2) study uses Participatory Action Research (PAR) to design and implement interventions to improve health and safety of COs. Method HITEC-2 compared two different types of participatory program, a CO-only “Design Team” (DT) and “Kaizen Event Teams” (KET) of COs and supervisors, to determine differences in implementation process and outcomes. The Program Evaluation Rating Sheet (PERS) was developed to document and evaluate program implementation. Results Both programs yielded successful and unsuccessful interventions, dependent upon team-, facility-, organizational, state-, facilitator-, and intervention-level factors. Conclusions PAR in corrections, and possibly other sectors, depends upon factors including participation, leadership, continuity and timing, resilience, and financial circumstances. The new PERS instrument may be useful in other sectors to assist in assessing intervention success.

Introduction The correctional workforce experiences persistent health problems, and interventions designed with worker participation show favorable outcomes. However, participatory intervention research often leaves workers out of the health needs assessment, the basis of interventions subsequently developed. This omission risks failure to detect factors contributing to the health and is less likely to result in primary prevention interventions. Methods Partnering with a correctional supervisors' union, we followed Schulz and colleagues' community‐based participatory research (CBPR) methods for participatory survey design and used Healthy Workplace Participatory Program (HWPP) tools to develop a tailored survey to assess workforce health and contributing factors. Utilizing the HWPP Focus Group Guide, we generated key themes to adapt the HWPP All Employee Survey, a generic workforce health assessment, to become thorough and contextually‐relevant for correctional supervisors. Results Content analysis of focus group data revealed 12 priority health concerns and contributors, including organizational culture, masculinity, work‐family conflict, family support, trauma, positive job aspects, health literacy and efficacy, health/risk behaviors, sleep, obesity, and prioritizing work and income over health. Twenty‐six measures were added to the generic survey, mainly health‐related antecedents including knowledge, attitudes, norms, and motivation. Conclusion Findings yielded new insights about supervisors' lived experiences of work and health, and resulted in a customized workforce survey. CBPR methods and HWPP tools allowed us to identify health issues that we would not have detected with conventional methods, and provide opportunities for interventions that address root causes of poor health. We share challenges faced and lessons learned using CBPR with the correctional workforce.

Objective This study examined associations among health behaviors, psychosocial work factors, and health status. Methods Correctional supervisors (n=157) completed a survey that assessed interpersonal and organizational views on health. Chi-square and logistic regressions were used to examine relationships among variables. Results Respondents had a higher prevalence of obesity and comorbidities compared to the general U.S. adult population. Burnout was significantly associated with nutrition, physical activity, sleep duration, sleep quality, diabetes, and anxiety/depression. Job meaning, job satisfaction and workplace social support may predict health behaviors and outcomes. Conclusions Correctional supervisors are understudied and have poor overall health status. Improving health behaviors of middle-management employees may have a beneficial effect on the health of the entire workforce. This paper demonstrates the importance of psychosocial work factors that may contribute to health behaviors and outcomes.

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