Injury illness surveillance

One approach for preventing adverse health effects to workers is occupational health surveillance. According to NIOSH, occupational health surveillance involves the "tracking of occupational injuries, illnesses, hazards, and exposures." Surveillance approaches include assessments of both individual- and group/population-based activities. Data obtained from health surveillance programs are used to "guide efforts to improve worker safety and health, and to monitor trends and progress over time."... 

Tiacking occupational injuries, illnesses, hazards, and exposures has been an integral part of NIOSH since its creation by the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970. NIOSH complements imirortant statistical or surveillance activities carried out by other federal agencies (including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the National Center for Health Statistics), state governments, and private sector groups. NIOSH s surveillance efforts include ... 

From this perspective, it may seem incongmous that these records could be of prime, practical significance to estimating the work injury and illness experience of the U.S. semiconductor industry, much less the nation s woik force. However, because the BLS recordkeeping system is considered credible by the federal and individual state governments, and because it is used both to target OSHA inspections and to determine the work injury and illness experience of employees in individual workplaces, it must be included in any employer s plan of injury and illness surveillance. 

The U.S. semiconductor industry has been a model for worker safety and health programs development. The ability to maintain an ongoing, industry-sponsored system of worker injury and illness surveillance for more than a decade has been unique in the American work force. Industry sponsorship of several, independent epidemiologic studies has represented a unified commitment to And answers to questions of reproductive health... 

Bem os-Torres SI, Greenko JA, PhilUps M, et al. World Trade Center rescue worker injury and illness surveillance. New York, 2001. Am J Prev Med 2003 25 79-87. 

National Institute for OccupatiDisease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/pesticides/. 

Ongoing Research. In terms of ongoing surveillance, the California Department of Food and Agriculture reviews annually all Doctor s First Reports of Worker Injury which are required to be submitted by physicians that treat any occupationally related illness or injury. In 1977, more than 1.5 million occupational illness and injury reports were submitted from the California workforce of more than 12 million workers. Of these 1,531 cases were classified as "probably" related to pesticide exposure. 

Designing a medical surveillance program to prevent illness and injury is seldom attempted by most physicians in clinical practice. This secondary preventive measure will augment and re-... 

This estimate does not include the cost of non-fatal injuries, or of occupational illnesses like cancer and lung disease. These illnesses generally may occur many years or even decades after workers are exposed and are therefore seldom recorded in government statistics or employer surveillance activities. 

Safety and health information means the establishment s fatality, injury, and illness history OSHA 200 logs workers compensation claims nurses logs the results of any medical screening or surveillance employee safety and health complaints and reports environmental and biological exposure data information from prior workplace safety and health inspections materials safety data sheets (MSDSs) the results of employee symptom surveys safety manuals and health and safety warnings provided to the employer by equipment manufacturers and chemical suppliers information about occupational safety and health provided to the employer by trade associations or professional safety or health organizations and the results of prior accident and incident investigations at the workplace. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (GDC), founded in 1946, and part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is concerned with infectious and chronic diseases, injuries, and disabilities in and out of the workplace, as well as environmental health hazards. The GDG s Foodbome Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) collaborates with industry, state health departments, and federal food regulatory agencies to monitor outbreaks of food-borne illness. 

The company nurse developed procedures for the first aiders to use when administering first aid, CPR, and emergency transfer of injured employees. She also developed procedures that describe the standardized assessment and onsite treatment that she uses for employee illnesses or injuries and for all health surveillance programs. 

The company nurse who heads this department has graduate-level training in assessment and management of illnesses and injuries. She is licensed to treat many of the employees occupational injuries and illnesses using previously approved standard procedures. A referral relationship has been established by a contract with a local hospital that has an emergency room and a medical provider. Employees with illnesses or injuries that are assessed by the nurse practitioner as too severe to be treated onsite are transferred to the emergency room. Those employees who receive treatment by the nurse practitioner and do not respond to the treatment as expected are referred to the medical provider. In this way, a majority of the work-related injuries and illnesses are treated the medical surveillance system. 

Calvert GM, Mehler LN, Alsop J et al (2010) Surveillance of pesticide-related illness and injury in humans. In Krieger R (ed) Handbook of pesticide toxicology, 3rd edn. Academic, New York... 

Medical surveillance, removal, monitoring, and reporting comply with applicable standards. Employees report early signs/symptoms of job-related injury or illness and receive appropriate treatment. ... 

Injury or illness. Cover policy on rendering first aid and location of first aid kit and how to contact medical information and treatment facilities for assistance. Cover the purpose of any medical surveillance program in use at the facility. Cite requirement to report all cases of injury, regardless of how minor, to supervisor according to local policy. 

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