Disease surveillance

Details

• Personal Author:
  Laney AS ; Storey, Eileen
• Description:
  Disease surveillance in the context of occupational health focuses on acute and chronic illnesses attributable primarily to work. While fragmented and incomplete in the United States, these systems provide important information on patterns of work-related illness within occupations and/or industries, opportunities for prevention, and measures of intervention effectiveness. There is growing interest in broader disease surveillance among working populations, focused on chronic diseases, which interfere with productivity and drive health care costs. This places less emphasis on work as a causative factor but enhances awareness of work and the workplace as an opportunity for intervention and prevention. An important component of comprehensive occupational disease surveillance is hazard surveillance, which can include environmental monitoring, hazardous material registries, industrial hygiene and engineering controls. Surveillance also requires action in response to information acquired. This can involve providing information to workers, employers, unions, health and safety organizations, and clinicians; it can involve the development or application of interventions to reduce or eliminate exposures associated with documented outcomes; or it can involve the development of guidelines, regulations, and policy. Clinicians play critical roles in surveillance systems. The information they record regarding the health status of patients, diagnoses, functional status, and ability to work are essential to understanding the status of populations. In many states, reporting work-related illnesses and injuries is mandated, creating a system that alerts public health agencies to clusters of events and emerging hazards. CONCLUSION: Because a majority of working aged adults spend a considerable portion of their waking hours at work, the impact of work-related illness on the individual, the employer and the overall economy is substantial. It is important to identify and ameliorate work attributable or exacerbated illnesses and injuries. To this end, occupational disease surveillance systems have and continue to be useful in monitoring worker health. These systems have evolved greatly in the United States in the last 30 years and are responsible for informing enforcement standards and employer-based health protection and promotion efforts. As electronic health records become fully implemented, additional opportunities exist for more comprehensive occupational health surveillance. Because technological advances and work processes are constantly changing, occupational disease surveillance will remain an important facet of public health. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Occupational Health Public Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Disease-prevention Information-processing Public-health Surveillance
• ISBN:
  9780071808156
• Publisher:
  McGraw-Hill Medical
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Book
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DRDS - Division of Respiratory Disease Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046235
• Citation:
  Current occupational and environmental medicine, fifth edition. LaDou J, Harrison R, eds. New York: McGraw-Hill Medical, 2014 Jul; :682-692
• Editor(s):
  LaDou J; Harrison R
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Current occupational and environmental medicine, fifth edition
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8e2f87f0b1cde320a82674285cceaee4beaa6fa3dba66640ee9ccaabf122e8fb7157f75d8286974648e1a066f2a7ab78d2e182afcb6f8e06febab1b6d0b30229
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/201348/cdc_201348_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 6.32 MB ]