New Mexico Occupational Health Surveillance: Fundamental Program

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The mission of the New Mexico Department of Health is to promote health and sound health policy, prevent disease and disability, improve health services systems and assure the essential public health functions and safety net services are available to all New Mexicans. Occupational health is an integral part of this mission. The main goal of the proposed funding will be to continue surveillance activities and build upon the occupational illness, toxic exposure, hazard, and injury surveillance program for the State of New Mexico. Specific goals will be to continue to identify the magnitude and distribution of work-related health problems, track trends, and target responsible industries or work processes for intervention. Objectives for the proposed funding will be to integrate occupational health surveillance into all aspects of public health surveillance conducted by the Department and to conduct occupational health surveillance using existing administrative data sets applying NIOSH approved surveillance methods. Additional goals are to improve the communication of occupational health analyses results to policy makers, public and occupational health practitioners, industry and workers. The proposed funding will focus on outreach to workers in high risk industries such as mining and construction, and to groups of workers who may face health disparities, such as Native Americans, migrant workers and workers in rural areas. The project will work collaboratively with the University of New Mexico to achieve the Department of Health mission. Together NMDOH and UNM will partner with state agencies such as the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau, New Mexico Environment Department and New Mexico Department of Agriculture, as well as labor organizations and industry to develop interventions for the prevention of occupational illness and industry.