Raising awareness of occupational carcinogens among apprentices in an approach to promoting health in the workplace.

Goals: The aim of this article is to report on an interventional research project - based in the human and social sciences, particularly sociology and educational sciences - designed to better understand how auto body technician, hairdresser, and beautician apprentices perceive the prevention of occupational carcinogenic risks, and to experiment with educational interventions aimed at raising their awareness of this issue.

Methods: The associated methodology combines interviews with apprentices and training professionals (n = 72), and over a hundred hours of observations in practice workshops and in classrooms. Interventions were carried out in four classrooms, the effects of which were measured by interviews and administered questionnaires.

Results: Although apprentices are concerned about their health, their position within the division of labour offers them very limited scope for preventive action. Professional norms tend to reinforce certain barriers to prevention. Carcinogenic risk, due to its delayed effects, remains difficult to apprehend and calls for specific intervention strategies. The interventions help to inform and initiate changes in their practices, but they struggle to make learners' awareness of the structural obstacles to prevention. All of these findings have been used to create tools that make up an educational kit available to trainers.

Conclusion: Preventing occupational carcinogenic risk among apprentices is a complex issue, and interventions in schools are one way of addressing it. However, a global change in practices requires these projects to be transferred to a larger scale, along with structural changes in working environments to promote the health of apprentices.