Occupational Health and Safety for the 21St Century
This book discusses occupational health and safety, including occupational policies, legislative acts, and laws for protection of workers. Epidemiology and toxicology are examples of two fields that make contributions to exposure assessments and illuminate the adverse health effects associated with work-related exposures. Among the adverse health outcomes that have been linked with the work environment are cancer, respiratory illness, and reproductive abnormalities. Unintentional injuries are one of the leading causes of work-related morbidity and mortality, but the psychological and social environment can also affect the health of workers by influencing levels of stress and morale. Methods have been developed to reduce exposures to hazards and increase occupational safety through redesign of the work environment, introduction of engineering controls, and limiting exposures to physical, microbial, and chemical agents. --
Safe Work in the 21st Century
Despite many advances, 20 American workers die each day as a result of occupational injuries. And occupational safety and health (OSH) is becoming even more complex as workers move away from the long-term, fixed-site, employer relationship. This book looks at worker safety in the changing workplace and the challenge of ensuring a supply of top-notch OSH professionals. Recommendations are addressed to federal and state agencies, OSH organizations, educational institutions, employers, unions, and other stakeholders. The committee reviews trends in workforce demographics, the nature of work in the information age, globalization of work, and the revolution in health care deliveryâ€"exploring the implications for OSH education and training in the decade ahead. The core professions of OSH (occupational safety, industrial hygiene, and occupational medicine and nursing) and key related roles (employee assistance professional, ergonomist, and occupational health psychologist) are profiled-how many people are in the field, where they work, and what they do. The book reviews in detail the education, training, and education grants available to OSH professionals from public and private sources.
A Smarter National Surveillance System for Occupational Safety and Health in the 21st Century
The workplace is where 156 million working adults in the United States spend many waking hours, and it has a profound influence on health and well-being. Although some occupations and work-related activities are more hazardous than others and face higher rates of injuries, illness, disease, and fatalities, workers in all occupations face some form of work-related safety and health concerns. Understanding those risks to prevent injury, illness, or even fatal incidents is an important function of society. Occupational safety and health (OSH) surveillance provides the data and analyses needed to understand the relationships between work and injuries and illnesses in order to improve worker safety and health and prevent work-related injuries and illnesses. Information about the circumstances in which workers are injured or made ill on the job and how these patterns change over time is essential to develop effective prevention programs and target future research. The nation needs a robust OSH surveillance system to provide this critical information for informing policy development, guiding educational and regulatory activities, developing safer technologies, and enabling research and prevention strategies that serves and protects all workers. A Smarter National Surveillance System for Occupational Safety and Health in the 21st Century provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of OSH surveillance. This report is intended to be useful to federal and state agencies that have an interest in occupational safety and health, but may also be of interest broadly to employers, labor unions and other worker advocacy organizations, the workers' compensation insurance industry, as well as state epidemiologists, academic researchers, and the broader public health community. The recommendations address the strengths and weaknesses of the envisioned system relative to the status quo and both short- and long-term actions and strategies needed to bring about a progressive evolution of the current system.
Occupational Health and Safety for the 21st Century
Occupational Health and Safety
This text provides a theoretical and empirical approach to investigating the nature of emerging OSH (Occupational Health and Safety) epidemics across the industrialized world. The author of each chapter in this book deals with exposure to a particular OSH hazard and examines the epidemic nature of the resulting ill-health or injury outcome. The authors also evaluate the contribution of globalization and neoliberal policies in creating workplace environments which foster such new OSH epidemics.
