California Occupational Safety and Health Surveillance

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PROJECT SUMMARY The overall purpose of this proposal is to maintain and enhance the capacity of the California occupational health surveillance program to identify state priorities and guide efforts to improve and protect worker safety and health; monitor statistical and other trends and progress over time; and develop and distribute prevention and intervention recommendations. This proposal is submitted as part of an Expanded Program that includes the enhanced fundamental activities and builds upon that program with three targeted surveillance, investigation, and prevention efforts for the “legacy” program areas of Occupational Respiratory Disease, Occupational Pesticide Illness, and Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation. The California occupational health and safety surveillance program has been approved by the California Health and Human Services Agency’s Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS) and is submitted as a research proposal that addresses significance, innovation, and approach. Some activities related to investigation of emerging hazards are determined through CPHS review to be public health practice. The Occupational Health Branch (OHB) has a long and successful history (since 1987) of working in collaboration with NIOSH, other state occupational health programs, and partners within California to promote worker health and safety through our public health prevention efforts. An important programmatic objective is to ensure that its surveillance and intervention activities are integrated within the prevention activities of both OHB and the broader public health infrastructure in California, including other CDPH programs, other state and local public health agencies, Cal/OSHA, academic institutions, the workers’ compensation system, and organizations representing workers, employers, and health professionals. In addition, the activities are based on the premise of research to practice – of completing the surveillance loop by translating findings from surveillance data analyses, case ascertainment, and field investigations into practical interventions, prevention strategies, and policy recommendations; tailoring prevention messages to each target audience using stakeholder input during product development; gathering evaluation feedback to ensure that the guidance is useful; and continually improving the program’s performance and effectiveness. The successful implementation of this program is aimed at reducing the burden of occupational illness and injury in California by providing outputs, including presentations, web- based resources, educational materials, and journal articles, that are easily usable by stakeholders for implementing workplace improvements and policy changes. Projected intermediate and end outcomes include changes in work practices and reductions in worker exposures at workplaces that adopt the recommendations for interventions and prevention strategies.