O-046 LET’S LEARN TOGETHER! ATTITUDES OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH PROFESSIONALS ABOUT INTERPROFESSIONAL CONTINUING EDUCATION

Occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals increasingly need interdisciplinary collaborative practice competencies to respond to complex worker safety, health, and social concerns. Effective communication with non-OSH-trained professionals (e.g., health promotion, human resources) is critical for delivering interventions that address interrelated work and non-work sources of risks, per the US “Total Worker Health” (TWH) and WHO Healthy Workplace frameworks. Interprofessional education (IPE) pedagogy offers skill-building specific to interdisciplinary collaboration, but little evidence is available for IPE implementation in OSH post-graduate education settings. We prospectively assessed OSH professionals’ attitudes for participating in post-graduate IPE to learn TWH practices and applications in the workplace. This mixed methods study involved 210 US professionals in safety (31%), industrial hygiene (16%), occupational nursing (12%) and medicine (11%), and related disciplines (30%). Participants completed a 12-item Readiness for Interprofessional Education Scale (RIPLS) adapted for TWH. Nineteen survey-takers also participated in virtual focus groups to share opinions about IPE benefits, barriers, and desirable course features. OSH professionals reported high overall readiness for IPE (RIPLS, 4.45±0.47), endorsing IPE for interdisciplinary skill-building. Salient IPE motivators were learning new perspectives from diverse disciplines and industries; gaining new subject expertise; and learning TWH best practices. Participants recommended case studies to practice interdisciplinary problem-solving and time for interdisciplinary group work. Participants strongly endorsed IPE pedagogy for interdisciplinary collaborative skill-building and developing “common ground” across disciplines. Interprofessional education is a promising pedagogy for OSH continuing education settings. OSH educators need to build competency in IPE pedagogical theory and practice.