Behavioral technology for reducing occupational exposures to styrene.

We conducted a test of the usefulness of behavioral methods to control occupational health problems by reducing workers' exposures to toxic chemicals. Four plastics workers were trained in nine behaviors selected for potential to reduce their exposures to styrene, a common chemical with multiple toxic effects. Behavioral measures indicated that the workers quickly came to emit most of the behaviors. Measures of air samples indicated that large decreases in exposures to styrene accompanied the changes in behaviors for the three workers who had been selected because they most needed relief from their exposures and because they had opportunities to control their exposures by the ways they behaved.