Saving lives through collaboration and crowdsourcing — Labor Panel Part 3

Black Lung: it’s a common condition miners contract after years of working miles below the earth’s surface.

The government set up a program to help, it’s called the Black Lung Grantee Program. But there was a problem — the miners weren’t interested in participating.

So the Grantee Program got to work on a solution. They turned to a ePolicy works tool.

Nadia Ibrahim is the Public Health Analyst and Black Lung Grantee Program Manager, Health Resources and Services Administration at the Health and Human Services Department.

She was part of a Labor DepartmentOffice of Disability Employment webcast, Policy Development Think Tank Webcast: New Strategies for Successful Collaboration.

DorobekINSIDER’s Chris Dorobek hosted the panel. Nadia told Chris why Black Lung is such a big problem for miners.

Lack of Participation?

“We suffered from low grantee participation because there was a perceived lack of transparency on all sides,” said Ibrahim, “we were also lacking a bit of the human element, so grantees didn’t feel engaged.”

ePolicy Works

“Needed to ask specific questions. We asked for feedback both with open and closed answer questions so we could get ask much information as possible to help influence coal miner legislation,” said Ibrahim.

Measure Success?

“Success for these projects looks different at every agency. But for us, a 5-10% jump in participation was huge. Prior to that people would sit silently on conference alls or no engage at all. They were a very closed off community. So the jump was huge,” said Ibrahim.