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Abstract
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Background School violence threatens educators, in addition to students. From initial analyses, education specialists (ES, advanced academic degree training), were identified at high risk for assaults, compared with all other education professionals (OEP) (kindergarten through grade 12: OR 6.35, 95% CI 4.46 to 9.04).
Aims/Objectives/Purpose Investigate assault risks for ES and OEP.
Methods Randomly selected licensed Minnesota educators (n=26 000) were screened by mailed questionnaire; 6469 were eligible (worked in previous year). Phase 1 identified 372 educators reporting student-perpetrated physical assaults in the previous year. Phase 2 (case-control study) identified exposures in the month before assaults (cases) or randomly selected work months for 1116 controls. Confounders were selected for multivariable logistic regression analyses using directed acyclic graphs to examine assault risks for ES and OEP; reweighting adjusted for potential response and unknown eligibility biases.
Results/Outcome Increased risks (OR, 95% CI) were found for ES: student contact hours (1.2, 1.009 to 1.3 per hour); and inadequate school resources ('always'/'frequently' vs 'sometimes:' 3.38, 1.52 to 7.51). Reduced risks were identified for ES: ≥8 vs <8 years of experience as an educator (0.51, 0.27 to 0.95); students assigned (10+ vs <10 years of age: 0.47, 0.26 to 0.84); part-time versus full-time contract (0.25, 0.11 to 0.59); worked in schools with >1000 vs 501-1000 students (0.37, 0.19 to 0.74).
Compared to ES, OEPs had increased risks for: inadequate building safety ('always'/'frequently' versus 'sometimes': (4.82, 2.18 to 10.66); assigned students' racial status different from educator (3.43, 1.99 to 5.91); worked in urban versus suburban schools (2.49, 1.55 to 4.01).
Significance/Contribution to the Field Identification of risk differences enables targeted opportunities for interventions essential to educators.
This is an abstract of a presentation at Safety 2012, the 11th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion, 1-4 October 2012, Michael Fowler Center, Wellington, New Zealand. Full text does not seem to be available for this abstract. |