STEP 2 OF PROJECT

STEP 2: 4-STEP PROJECT

THE LITERATURE REVIEW AND SHORT PROJECT PROTOCOL DEVELOPMENT
Step 2 is based on the results of the Step 1 hazard identification and risk assessment exercise. Students are now required to do a literature review and to develop a brief project protocol for measuring at least one of the hazards which they have identified and prioritised. The Literature Review You need to consult the scientific literature about one or more hazards and/or their linkages to an adverse health outcome of your choice from the range of prioritised hazards in your hazard scan. Once you have chosen your research topic you need to summarise what is known and where the gaps in knowledge are, and then to relate these to your project which will typically be to measure the risk, or effect or the exposure-response relationship. The best way of proceeding with a literature review is to find a good or reputable recent review article or perhaps chapter in a textbook on the topic. This can be accomplished by searching the ILO Encyclopaedia or searching Pubmed. Pubmed actually gives you results for review articles and individual articles so this is made easy for you. Usually the review will cover all individual studies up to that date so you can then search forwards for studies after that. At the end of this you will have a good idea of what is the state of existing knowledge and what are the gaps in knowledge about risk, effect, or both. The way in which this linkage to your project protocol takes place is for the review to end up with a set of stated aims and objectives for what you will be measuring using your protocol - which is what you will be doing next. Developing a Protocol This is a simple protocol to ensure that obvious methodological issues are addressed and that the objectives are clear. The intention is to improve the occupational health service and not to do full-on research so we do not get ethics approval usually (i.e. it should be something that an occupational health service would do anyway to evaluate an issue and improve the service e.g. implementing a better housekeeping programme in an analytical lab and evaluating staff blood lead levels for decline after the changes). A relatively simple protocol to measure ergonomic risks in the pharmaceutical industry for Tension Neck Syndromw is provided as an example below. You need to follow the structure of this protocol when you draft your own. The detail need not be too much but you should include something concise for all relevant headings so that your measurement task in the next project step runs both smoothly and like clockwork without too much thinking.	You will be expected to hand in two pieces of writing: a) a literature review (do not produce anything that is longer than 12 pages at the most not counting the reference list) b) a brief protocol (do not produce anything that is longer than 10 pages at the most not counting appendices such as questionnaires etc) Just follow the examples and produce versions that are as concise as possible.

THE LITERATURE REVIEW AND SHORT PROJECT PROTOCOL DEVELOPMENT

Step 2 is based on the results of the Step 1 hazard identification and risk assessment exercise. Students are now required to do a literature review and to develop a brief project protocol for measuring at least one of the hazards which they have identified and prioritised.

The Literature Review

You need to consult the scientific literature about one or more hazards and/or their linkages to an adverse health outcome of your choice from the range of prioritised hazards in your hazard scan.

Once you have chosen your research topic you need to summarise what is known and where the gaps in knowledge are, and then to relate these to your project which will typically be to measure the risk, or effect or the exposure-response relationship.

The best way of proceeding with a literature review is to find a good or reputable recent review article or perhaps chapter in a textbook on the topic. This can be accomplished by searching the ILO Encyclopaedia or searching Pubmed. Pubmed actually gives you results for review articles and individual articles so this is made easy for you.

Usually the review will cover all individual studies up to that date so you can then search forwards for studies after that.

At the end of this you will have a good idea of what is the state of existing knowledge and what are the gaps in knowledge about risk, effect, or both. The way in which this linkage to your project protocol takes place is for the review to end up with a set of stated aims and objectives for what you will be measuring using your protocol - which is what you will be doing next.

Developing a Protocol

This is a simple protocol to ensure that obvious methodological issues are addressed and that the objectives are clear.

The intention is to improve the occupational health service and not to do full-on research so we do not get ethics approval usually (i.e. it should be something that an occupational health service would do anyway to evaluate an issue and improve the service e.g. implementing a better housekeeping programme in an analytical lab and evaluating staff blood lead levels for decline after the changes).

A relatively simple protocol to measure ergonomic risks in the pharmaceutical industry for Tension Neck Syndromw is provided as an example below.

You need to follow the structure of this protocol when you draft your own. The detail need not be too much but you should include something concise for all relevant headings so that your measurement task in the next project step runs both smoothly and like clockwork without too much thinking.

You will be expected to hand in two pieces of writing:

a) a literature review (do not produce anything that is longer than 12 pages at the most not counting the reference list)

b) a brief protocol (do not produce anything that is longer than 10 pages at the most not counting appendices such as questionnaires etc)

Just follow the examples and produce versions that are as concise as possible.

Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health (DOH) - Modules 3: Occupational Medicine & Toxicology (Basic) by Profs Mohamed Jeebhay and Rodney Ehrlich, Health Sciences UCT is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License. Major contributors: Mohamed Jeebhay, Rodney Ehrlich, Jonny Myers, Leslie London, Sophie Kisting, Rajen Naidoo, Saloshni Naidoo. Source available from here. For any updates to the material, or more permissions beyond the scope of this license, please email healthoer@uct.ac.za or visit www.healthedu.uct.ac.za. Last updated Jan 2007.
Disclaimer note: Some resources and descriptions may be out-dated. For suggested updates and feedback, please contact healthoer@uct.ac.za.