Enhancing State-based Occupational Safety and Health Surveillance, Collaboration, Education, and Translation to Reduce Worker-Related Injury and Illness

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Project Summary/Abstract Work related injuries and illnesses are both common and costly, with approximately 1.5 million work-related injuries and illnesses costing approximately $250 billion per year. State-based occupational safety and health (OSH) surveillance systems are essential for identifying and preventing work-related injuries and illnesses. The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists’ (CSTE) proposed activities will enhance state-based capacity to collect surveillance data across the 10 National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) sectors and all seven NORA cross-sectors for workers of all ages. Outcomes will include a greater visibility of OSH issues, an increase in the state workforce that is able to perform the essential public health services related occupational health epidemiology, and for more states and tribal nations to have an effective occupational safety and health surveillance program, and ultimately, a reduction in workplace exposures, injuries and illness for all NORA sectors/cross-sectors. As the surveillance initiatives included in this proposal address all NORA sectors, the outcomes outlined in the proposal support all seven of NORA’s strategic goals as well the NIOSH’s intermediate goal for its surveillance program (SS 1.1). There are 34 outputs in this proposal, however many of the outputs include multiple components so the total number of outputs are appreciably greater. Examples of outputs include: Coordination between CSTE, states, NIOSH and other partners; Reports, how-to guides and other tools related to Occupational Health Indicators, which enable states uniformly collect and report on occupational health, illness and risk data; communication, training and outreach strategies, such as webinars, newsletters and consultations to disseminate information and best practices; working groups meetings and other forums for sharing scientific information; and the development of OSH surveillance tools and technical documents. This proposal supports the NIOSH Research to Practice (r2p) approach by fostering collaboration among state programs and NIOSH and providing a forum by which additional research needs are identified, and by translating surveillance data through various communication and outreach strategies. Additionally, the activities in this proposal will help educate the state OSH surveillance workforce, which will facilitate more partnerships in each state to share research findings, data, and educational messages for improvement of health and safety in workplaces across the U.S.