American Journal of Industrial Medicine 23:695-701 ( 1 9 3 ) zy Worker Awareness of Exposure: Industries and Occupations With Low Awareness Virginia J. Behrens, MS, and Robert M. Brackbill, PhD, MPH A zyxwvutsrq goal of occupational health is to inform workers of hazards on their jobs. This analysis addresses this goal by identifying industries and occupations with low worker awareness of potential exposures. Industries and occupations were ranked by the greatest positive difference between the proportion of workers exposed and proportion perceiving expo- sure to chemical and physical hazards. Those with low awareness had the greatest difference, i.e., high exposure and low perception. This analysis was performed by adding exposure data from a national exposure survey to a national health survey with perceived exposure data. The hospital and construction industries and occupations in these industries ranked among the top five for all hazards. For example, for hospital workers the difference between proportion exposed and proportion perceiving exposure to chemicals was zyxwvuts 62% and to radiation was 42%, and for workers in construction the difference was 54% for exposure to noise and 63% for exposure to vibration. zy 0 zyxwvu 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Key words: chemical hazards, physical hazards, National Health Interview Survey, construction industry, hospital workers, occupational exposures, noise hazard INTRODUCTION To prevent occupational disease, workers need to be informed about hazardous exposures and ways to reduce these exposures. As a way of finding how well workers are informed, we compared objective observation to subjective perception of expo- sures. Our purpose was to find industries and occupations where worker awareness of exposure was low compared to their potential for exposure and thus identify where workers need to be better informed. Our objectives were to compare observed and perceived exposure from the best available information and to look at industries and occupations nationally. The pre- ferred data on observed and perceived exposure would be from the same sample of workers. However, such a national survey neither exists nor will probably exist due National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control, Taft Laboratories, Cincinnati, OH (V.J.B.). National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA (R.M.B.). Address reprint requests to Ms. Virginia Behrens, NIOSH Taft Laboratories M.S. R-21, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226. Accepted for publication July 29, 1992. zyxwvu 0 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.