Evaluation issues in the drake chemical workers notification and health registry study

Abstract

The Drake Chemical Workers' Health Registry combined notification of workers about bladder cancer risk with access to a free program for screening and diagnosis. Evaluation of the project has given rise to several findings and new research questions. Findings in this article illustrate the following evaluation issues: 1) studying the combination of strategies that are most effective and cost effective to notify workers of their disease risks, 2) determining the realistic yield from strategies to gain participation in health screening and other protective services for notified workers, 3) identifying the notification strategies that were most effective for different kinds of participants, 4) using process evaluation to identify key activities for ensuring continued participation of cohort members in screening, and 5) examining the extent to which participants are willing to quit smoking to protect their health.

The Drake Health Registry Study: Findings from fifteen years of continuous bladder cancer screening

“…Any participants who screen positive are then eligible for a free diagnostic evaluation that includes a bladder cystoscopy with random biopsies. Details of the background and program development are described elsewhere [Marsh et al, 1988[Marsh et al, , 1990Leviton et al, 1991Leviton et al, , 1993.…”

Integrating psychology and public health: Challenges and opportunities.

“…In fact, adding behavioral components to medically oriented programs often increases “reach,” and thus increases the marginal cost-effectiveness of the medical intervention. For example, a program for former chemical workers exposed to a bladder carcinogen used media and community-support strategies to make recruitment and patient education less labor-intensive than it would otherwise have been (Leviton, Chen, Marsh, & Talbott, 1993).…”

The Drake Health Registry Study: Cause‐specific mortality experience of workers potentially exposed to beta‐naphthylamine

“…The Drake Health Registry Study (DHRS) provides participants free screening tests (urinalysis, Papanicolaou (PAP) urine cytology, and Quantitative Fluorescence Image Analysis (QFIA)) and diagnostic evaluations [Hemstreet et al, 1983[Hemstreet et al, , 1990[Hemstreet et al, , 1992[Hemstreet et al, , 1996. Detailed procedures and results of the screening program are described elsewhere [Leviton et al, , 1993Marsh et al, 1991;Marsh and Cassidy, 2003]. Besides bladder cancer screening, a primary objective of the DHRS is to evaluate total and cause-specific mortality risks among the cohort.…”