SHARP's Year in Review — 2024

In 2024, SHARP continued to innovate and develop knowledge to improve the safety and health of Washington workers. As we move in to 2025, we are sending this email to share some highlights of SHARP’s research and collaborations from the past year.

Your Lungs, Your Work, Your Life

The Occupational Respiratory Disease program at SHARP tracks cases of work-related asthma, asbestos-related disease, silicosis, and Valley fever. In 2024, the program released a technical report detailing methods and data trends. Work-related asthma is the most common among the tracked conditions, and 549 cases were identified for the period from 2017 through 2022.

Work-related asthma includes pre-existing asthma that is worsened by exposures at work, known as work-aggravated asthma. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, work-aggravated asthma was most often caused by exposure to smoke, mold, and dust; after the pandemic onset, the most common causes shifted to work-acquired COVID-19 as an asthma trigger, smoke, and cleaning chemicals.

People without pre-existing asthma can develop new onset occupational asthma due to exposures in the workplace. The most common causes of new-onset occupational asthma are smoke, dust, western red cedar, cleaning materials, chemicals, and cannabis dust in the legalized grow industry.

In addition to respiratory disease, SHARP identifies cases where workers inhale toxic chemicals, with a focus on exposures to carbon monoxide, beryllium, chromium, methylene chloride, ammonia, chlorine, metal fume, and wildfire smoke.

In the past year, program researchers examined the effect that the pandemic had on workers’ exposure to cleaning chemicals. They found that the rate of toxic inhalation injury for exposure to cleaning chemicals increased significantly during the pandemic for workers in Transportation and Warehousing, Retail Trade, and Educational Services. Data on these trends, including a 20-case injury series for workers exposed to disinfectants aerosolized from electrostatic sprayers, will be released in 2025.

Prevent Aggression and Support Safety in Work and Life (PASS)

Nurses often experience a high level of workplace aggression and work-life conflict on the job, which can negatively affect worker safety, health, and well-being.

To address these risks, SHARP’s Dr. Nan Yragui teamed with researchers from Portland State University and Oregon Health & Science University to adapt the SHARP-established program for supervisors Prevent Aggression and Support Safety in Work and Life (PASS). PASS uses a multifaceted approach, including e-learning, self-monitoring and goal setting, and peer-to-peer sessions for community building and learning transfer. Leaders learn skills for working with their teams to create a supportive culture focused on preventing the stressors of workplace violence and work-life conflict.

This formative research study included two Pacific Northwest hospitals, and utilized environmental hazard assessments, on-site observation, and interviews with 28 participants including hospital nurses and managers. Findings from the qualitative data analysis included several key themes, for example, the theme of Resource Strengths revealed strong evidence of support, a primary antidote to stress from violence as well as physical and well-being harm:

“…When my co-worker was spit on (by a patient) we did unofficial debriefing. We talked about the situation, where he [the employee] talked about how angry he was and how he needed to step away. He apologized (after stepping away), of course. And we tried to just be supportive to him.”

Study results will be used to modify the PASS intervention for the acute care hospital setting, with the goal of developing managerial evidence-based practices to reduce workplace aggression and staff injuries, and to enhance leadership skills that protect worker well-being, safety, and work-life balance.

SHARP Engages with Partners to Protect Workers and their Families from Lead

Researchers have warned about the harmful effects of lead for centuries, yet workers continue to be exposed. Each year, hundreds of adults in WA have elevated blood lead (≥5µg/dl), many of them exposed to lead at work. The Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance (ABLES) project at SHARP intervenes by sending them letters and lead exposure prevention information.

Partnered with ABLES in this effort are the Washington State Department of Health (DOH), who ensures that healthcare providers and laboratories enter blood lead test results into the reporting system, and L&I’s Division of Occupational Safety & Health (DOSH), who applies the workplace lead rules designed to ensure employers prevent lead exposure and elevated blood lead. In the past year, ABLES teamed with DOH to focus outreach to the families of workers who may be exposed from take-home lead, and with DOSH to focus on workplaces where workers frequently have high blood lead.

To learn more about blood lead in adults, the industries where those with elevated results commonly work, and industries where DOSH has worked with employers to prevent lead exposure, see the ABLES Surveillance Report 2019-2023.

Using the Power of Story within the Data to Save Lives and Prevent Injuries

Behind every data point collected by injury prevention researchers at SHARP are real stories of workers who were killed or severely injured on the job. SHARP’s Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (WA FACE) and Immediate Inpatient Hospitalizations projects communicate these stories to employers and their workers facing similar risks.

The stories, in the form of Fatality Narratives and Worker Hospitalization Alerts, share detailed descriptions of how workers were injured, factors that contributed to their injuries, and practical recommendations on how to avoid the risks and stay safe. They include details and situations that workers can relate to combined with compelling photos and illustrations that get their attention, raise awareness, and make lasting impressions. Employers and the safety and health community consistently provide feedback that the stories are among their most effective training tools.

Both projects frequently publish resources for high-risk industries including agriculture, construction, and transportation, as well as others. To learn more about worker fatality and injury data or to combine it with stories for impactful trainings, check out reports on 2023 Work-Related Deaths and 2022 Work-Related Immediate Inpatient Hospitalizations.

SHARP Program Site