Participatory action research in corrections: The HITEC 2 program

Work Characteristics as Predictors of Correctional Supervisors’ Health Outcomes

“…3 In our own evaluation of the CO population (Cherniack et al, 2016), where blood pressure was directly measured, age-adjusted hypertension was considerably higher than national norms. 93 In addition, a recent report on cardiovascular health reported that 17% of U.S. adults have undiagnosed hypertension; 94 it is possible that hypertension was underreported in this study. Consistent with previous work, 95 BMI was significantly associated with diabetes and hypertension, but was not associated with elevated cholesterol in this sample.…”

Process evaluation of two participatory approaches: Implementing total worker health® interventions in a correctional workforce

“…In 2006, the Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH‐NEW), a NIOSH Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health, launched HITEC (Health Improvement through Employee Control), an intervention research program aimed at improving CO well‐being in Connecticut [Morse et al, ; Cherniack et al, ]. HITEC is a collaboration between the University of Connecticut (UConn) research team and DOC administration and labor organizations that has lasted for a decade and is ongoing.…”

“…HITEC‐1 compared two intervention strategies: one driven by DOC administration with the help of health professionals (i.e., top‐down), and one driven by frontline COs that involved participatory intervention design (i.e., bottom‐up). The top‐down approach was ineffective in reducing health risks and had lower participation and CO acceptance than the bottom‐up approach [Cherniack et al, ]. Because of the failure of the top‐down administration‐directed arm of HITEC‐1, it was replaced by a modified Kaizen‐type approach in HITEC‐2, launched in 2012, using Participatory Action Research (PAR).…”

“…First, in keeping with participatory methodology, CO participation was required for the design and implementation of the health and safety interventions. Second, interventions were required to target improvement in health by considering both the DOC work environment and organizational structure, and the behavior of individual COs [Cherniack et al, ].…”

The Application of Salutogenesis to Correctional Officers in Corrections Settings

“…The IDEAS Tool further empowers front-line employees in the intervention planning process by providing step-by-step guides for how to first identify root causes of problems/concerns (that can be either pathogenic or salutogenic in nature), and then to develop intervention ideas along with a business case for their implementation that the steering committee and upper management can then review and often support. This structured participatory approach to intervention planning within PExHP programs can contribute to meaningful ownership of the interventions by both management and frontline employees, something that is known to greatly contribute to the success of an intervention when it is eventually implemented (Brown, 2002;Cherniack et al, 2016;Henning et al, 2009).…”