North Carolina Occupational Health and Safety Surveillance Program

Details

• Personal Author:
  Dang GTT
• Description:
  Work conditions can have a negative impact on health. Although rates of work-related injuries and deaths are declining in North Carolina, these adverse outcomes still persist. These incidents are preventable, and successful approaches for making workplaces safer begin with having data necessary to improve understanding of the workplace conditions leading to these outcomes. Occupational surveillance can provide important tools to accomplish this. In 2010, North Carolina initiated the Fundamental State-Based Occupational Health and Safety Surveillance Program (OHSSP) to establish capacity to track and respond to workplace injuries and illnesses in the state. OHSSP has developed this capacity through identifying applicable data sources to characterize trends in workers' health and safety, building surveillance infrastructure through a network of partnerships, and applying surveillance findings to prioritize focus areas for health and safety promotion activities. The program secured access to occupational health data from a broad range of sources, including existing data from national and state sources, and case-based data from previously-established collaborations. The program applied findings from trend reports of workers' health status to establish priorities for further investigation. An advisory group was established with representatives from various disciplines in occupational health, which included regulatory, research, safety and health, agromedicine, epidemiology, academia, and health promotion at the state and national level. Opportunities for outreach, intervention, and other prevention strategies were identified through data findings, existing public health infrastructure, and/or emerging occupational health issues and initiatives arising from in-state, out-of-state, or national collaborations. Priority focus areas for future OHSSP surveillance projects were also identified. These areas included persistently high rates of injuries and fatalities in the agriculture, construction, and transportation/warehousing industry sectors, and among the immigrant worker population; and the need for expanded case-based lead and pesticide exposure surveillance. With these priorities in mind, OHSSP plans to expand its capacity to collect event data on pesticide poisoning cases and the work experience of immigrant workers; develop and maintain existing partnerships; evaluate and apply other datasets for in-depth, detailed analyses of occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities identified by previous work; and apply findings for data-driven interventions. Ongoing occupational surveillance will allow North Carolina to identify the extent, severity, and patterns of work-related morbidity and mortality; make recommendations to increase awareness of workplace hazards among workers in the state; and ultimately, reduce work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths in North Carolina. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Health Promotion Mortality Occupational Health Public Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Fatalities Health Promotion Information Dissemination Injuries Injury Prevention Mortality Data Occupational Health Programs Occupational Safety Programs Public Health Surveillance Programs
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Final Cooperative Agreement Report
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-42
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20061668
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2022-100350
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, U60-OH-009857, 2015 Oct; :1-42
• Contact Point Address:
  Gregory T T Dang, DrPH, CPH, North Carolina Division of Public Health, Occupational & Environmental Epidemiology Branch, 5505 Six Forks Rd, Raleigh, NC 27609
• Email:
  gregory.dang@dhhs.nc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• Performing Organization:
  North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20100701
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20150630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:da99dfff5aaa40ae0de988c6ca49bfe192bfd6081a30f89f3b2a0ddabbd568005fd54bb122f2957e2c2e3a96b31a83909e9e856c458d8d11421146358e77ed69
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/219036/cdc_219036_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 944.40 KB ]