Survey on the occupational health literacy of workers in Shanghai Chemical Industry Park

Objective To understand the occupational health literacy among workers in Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park(SCIP), to provide a scientific basis for the construction of "healthy enterprises" and "healthy parks, " and to improve health promotion work in SCIP.

Methods From July 2021 to September 2022, a stratified random sampling method was used to conduct an occupational health literacy survey among 1 921 workers from 23 enterprises in SPIC.

Results The level of occupational health literacy of 1 921 workers was 58.77%, and the awareness rate of basic skills for occupational health protection was low(10.20%). Multivariate analysis showed that industry and education level were influencing factors of occupational health literacy(P < 0.05). Compared with the workers with junior high school and below, the levels of occupational health literacy of workers with high school, vocational high school and secondary school, junior college, and bachelor degree and above were increased to 1.813(95% CI: 1.315-2.500), 2.764(95% CI: 2.004-3.183), and 7.174(95% CI: 5.072-10.147) times, respectively. The levels of occupational health literacy of workers in electricity, heat, gas, and water production and supply and other industries were 0.421(95% CI: 0.334-0.530) and 0.595(95% CI: 0.450-0.787) times that of those in chemical raw materials and chemical products manufacturing industries, respectively.Improving occupational health knowledge helps employees have better basic occupational health protection skills, healthy working styles, and a higher awareness rate of behaviors(OR=2.173-4.459, P < 0.05).

Conclusions The workers in Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park had a moderate level of occupational health literacy. The improvement work should focus on strengthening the occupational health training of workers with low education levels and workers in the non-chemical raw materials and non-chemical products manufacturing industry.