Building Capacity for State-Based Occupational Health Surveillance

描述（由申请人提供）：职业伤害和疾病是重大的公共卫生问题。然而，这些伤害和疾病是可以预防的。为了使工作场所更加健康和安全，卫生机构必须获得充分了解这一问题所需的信息。职业健康监测提供了重要信息，为研究重点、预防活动的目标和设计提供信息，并监测实现预防目标的进展。由于国家系统中存在许多差距，州卫生机构在填补这些差距和指导地方预防工作方面发挥着至关重要的作用。为了促进州一级的职业健康，有必要指导由国家职业安全与健康研究所（NIOSH）新资助的基于州的监测项目；加强所有23个NIOSH资助的州支持项目之间的协作和协同作用；并在全国各州促进职业卫生专业知识和监测工作的发展。国家和地区流行病学家委员会（CSTE）是成员国和地区的一个组织，代表在国家和地方政府工作的流行病学家在公共卫生实践中的观点。国家流行病研究中心的一个主要目标是在州和地区流行病学家和其他卫生机构之间建立更有效的关系。CSTE与NIOSH和各州在努力发展各州职业健康监测能力方面有着悠久的合作历史。社发社建议在这一历史的基础上：通过职业健康指标和联合监测项目提高监测能力；通过立场声明，倡导将职业健康方面的考虑纳入更广泛的公共卫生议程；制定和传播监测指南、成功案例，并通过国家职业健康委员会网站增加获取国家职业健康信息的机会；更新开展职业健康监测的技术指南；计划，组织，实施和评估科学会议和研讨会，以支持NIOSH资助和未资助的国家职业健康监测计划；促进州、地区和全国范围内的合作，以提高美国的职业健康监测能力。该提案将解决已确定的需要，即提高州在职业健康方面的能力，并将其纳入一般公共卫生实践。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Occupational injuries and illnesses are significant public health problems. However, these injuries and illnesses can be prevented. In order to make workplaces healthier and safer, health agencies must obtain the information necessary to fully understand the problem. Occupational health surveillance provides essential information to inform research priorities, target and design prevention activities, and monitor progress in meeting prevention goals. Because many gaps exist in national systems, state health agencies have a crucial role to play both in filling these gaps and in guiding local prevention efforts. To advance occupational health at the state level, there is a need to mentor state-based surveillance programs newly funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH); enhance collaboration and synergism among all 23 NIOSH funded state supported programs; and promote development of occupational health expertise and surveillance efforts in all states across the nation. The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) is an organization of member states and territories and represents the perspective of epidemiologists working in state and local governments in the practice of public health. A primary goal of CSTE is to establish more effective relationships among state and territorial epidemiologists and other health agencies. CSTE has a long history of collaboration with NIOSH and the states in working to develop occupational health surveillance capacity in the states. CSTE is proposing to build on this history to: advance surveillance capacity through occupational health indicators and joint surveillance projects; advocate for inclusion of occupational health considerations on the broader public health agenda through position statements; develop and disseminate surveillance guidance, success stories, and enhance access to state occupational health information via the CSTE website; update technical guidance for conducting occupational health surveillance; plan, organize, conduct, and evaluate scientific meetings and workshops to support NIOSH funded and unfunded state occupational health surveillance programs, and; promote state, regional, and nationwide collaboration to increase occupational health surveillance capacity in the U.S. This proposal will address the identified need to increase state capacity in occupational health and to integrate it into general public health practice. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Relevance to Public Health Injuries in the workplace, both fatal and nonfatal, are preventable. Each year in the U.S., four of every 100 full-time workers, approximately 4.4 million individuals, sustain injuries, and over 5,200 workers die from workplace injuries (BLS, 2010). Although there is a comprehensive national surveillance system for fatal occupational injuries, the current nationwide system for surveillance of occupational illnesses and nonfatal occupational injuries has substantial gaps (Azaroff, 2002) and there have been recent calls for improvement (IOM & NRC, 2009; USHR, 2008) and capacity building for occupational health surveillance. States, which have legal authority to require disease reporting and collect health data, have a crucial role to play in both filling these gaps in the national system and generating information necessary to guide state and local efforts to protect the safety and health of working people (CSTE, 2001).