Occupational Safety and Health for Public Safety Employees: Assessing the Evidence and the Implications for Public Policy

Details

• Personal Author:
  LaTourrette T ; Loughran DS ; Seabury SA
• Description:
  Public safety employees are routinely asked to put their own lives and well-being at risk in order to protect the life and property of ordinary citizens. As a result, they face injury and fatality rates that are as much as three times higher than those faced by workers in non-safety occupations. These high levels of risk have motivated considerable efforts to identify the nature and causes of occupational health risks to public safety personnel, in order to better understand how to take steps to reduce these risks. However, such efforts require a comprehensive understanding of the specific risk factors associated with different aspects of public safety occupations. The objective of this study, which was funded by both the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), was to aid in the design of effective safety interventions by characterizing the important safety and health risks faced by public safety personnel and how those risks differ from those faced by non-safety personnel. To accomplish this, we pursued the following research goals: 1. Summarize the existing literature on the injury and fatality risks to public safety employees. 2. Characterize the perceived risks and the efforts currently used by public safety departments to reduce those risks. 3. Describe the differences in the rates of injury, disability, and other chronic health problems for workers in public safety occupations compared with workers in other occupations. Our work helps to identify the opportunities and challenges that policymakers and employers face in improving the workplace safety of public safety employees. A majority of our focus is on police officers and firefighters, which are the two most common safety occupations. However, when data are available, we also consider other occupations, such as emergency medical service (EMS) responders and correctional facility officers.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Health Personnel Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Safety Management Staff Development
• Keywords:
  Emergency Medical Services Workers Emergency Medical Technician EMS EMT Fatalities Fire Fighters Health Hazards Injuries Intervention Intervention Effectiveness Law Enforcement Officer LEO Occupational Hazards Occupational Health Occupational Safety And Health Police Officers Policy Public Health Public Safety Risk Analysis Risk Factors Safety Personnel Services Worker Health Worker Safety Workers Compensation

  More +
• ISBN:
  9780833046215
• Publisher:
  RAND Corporation
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Book ; Final Contract Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; District of Columbia ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OD - Office of the Director
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-125
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20060238
• Citation:
  Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, MG-792-CHSWC/NIOSH, 2008 Nov; :1-125
• Email:
  seabury@rand.org
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• Performing Organization:
  RAND Corporation
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3516cecd20ec931511ef8acea251bf10e06297d664618d6768955d73333c0e11ad60546647c195789a05b3742b6e1ba0b0fb9ac2574b3e1479ad88213947b4dc
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181880/cdc_181880_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 790.43 KB ]