The Critical Need for Improved Enumeration and Surveillance of the Logging Workforce

Details

• Personal Author:
  Alamgir H ; Cooper SP ; Levin J ; Martínez-Pachon G
• Description:
  Logging has long been recognized as one of the most dangerous areas in which to work both as an industry and as an occupation. In 2012, the logging industry accounted for 62 deaths in the United States. This results in a fatality rate of 127.8 per 100,000 logging workers, which is even higher than fishing workers (117) and more than 40 times higher than the overall rate of 3.2 in the United States. This industry is an essential part of the US economy as an important source of employment and generation of economic resources. Insufficient information and lack of understanding of the risk factors, causes, nature, and outcomes of injury in this sector has prevented development and prioritization of effective interventions to improve the safety and health of logging workers. ... Surveillance in the forestry sector suffers from the fragmented and incomplete nature of occupational safety and health surveillance in this country, but experiences even more difficult challenges due to the diverse subsets of workers, many of who are in the more invisible informal sector (including immigrant workers) or work on small firms that may remain unprotected from federal regulations, and therefore escape the capture of routine surveillance systems in the United States, such as the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) surveys, or even National Agricultural Worker Survey. Specifically, surveillance challenges inherent in this sector include (1) inconsistencies in the definition of work and employment; and (2) incomplete reporting from unpaid family workers, small employers, the self-employed, and owners and partners in unincorporated firms. We anticipate undertaking a subsequent study after this project is completed. In this follow-up project, we will propose to access the data from these sources, compare and contrast the available data through the capture-recapture method, find ways to aggregate data from multiple sources, and develop the methods to calculate and present logging health and safety indicators. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Emigration And Immigration Forestry Occupational Health Safety Small Business
• Keywords:
  Forestry Workers Immigrant Workers Logging Industry Logging Safety Small Businesses Surveillance
• ISSN:
  1059-924X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 6 ; Texas
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  74-77
• Volume:
  19
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20070075
• Citation:
  J Agromedicine 2014 Apr; 19(2):74-77
• Email:
  Abul.h.alamgir@uth.tmc.cedu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• NORA Priority Area:
  Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
• Performing Organization:
  University of Texas Health Center at Tyler
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20010930
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Agromedicine
• End Date:
  20270929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:600ea966bd2d6a62a1017f5dae8df69c93d75dfbdada7e36bf4c073f7b5a6f3522f57890b68178615469c8c5861f6a4238f999f588e8227e947ccf52b070e82a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/208371/cdc_208371_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 369.29 KB ]