Workplace Safety Policy: Past, Present, and Future

1997

Safety at work is a challeging issue for firms and governments worldwide. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on occupational accidents. We analyze causes of injury and risk factors, economic and social consequences, Occupational Health and Safety Management System areas of priority and effectiveness of interventions. We highlight the key role of workers and of prevention programs. Accident prevention is a means of reducing negative effects of accidents and increasing productivity. Furthermore, prevention can raise creditworthiness and lower insurance premiums.

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2012

Objective: Provide descriptive statistics and discuss priorities for injury and fatality risks among services sector workers. Methods: Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses and Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries data for 2003 to 2007 were analyzed to identify occupational injury and fatality risks for services sector industry groups. Results: Many services sector industry groups experienced, on average, greater than one occupational fatality per week, and survey of occupational injuries and illnesses days-away-from-work rates in excess of those for all US workers. Overall, transportation incidents and homicides are leading factors contributing to fatalities. Conclusions: These results indicate the need for adoption of safety and health prevention practices in numerous industry groups. For groups that experience elevated injury and fatality rates, priorities for research and intervention can be identified through these data.

The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 1974

Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 2006

This discussion paper is intended to start a dialogue about prevention among those who are interested in making workplaces safer and healthier. The following four key themes are presented to build a framework for further discussion and activity: theme 1 -with multiple causes for workplace injury, illness, and disability, preventing these problems requires multiple solutions, operating in synergy; theme 2 -efforts to reduce workplace injury, illness, and disability must build on both primary and secondary prevention approaches, merging these to create a more effective strategy; theme 3 -before which strategies work and which do not can be agreed upon, a shared understanding is needed of how the effectiveness of occupational health interventions should be evaluated; and theme 4 -building relationships between those who do research and those who use research knowledge is important if relevant research is to be produced that is readily taken up and applied to improve occupational health and safety.

The Ergonomics Open Journal, 2009

Using a cross-sectional model, this paper analyzes the relationships between occupational injury rates and worker safety training, workplace safety practices, and health-oriented employee benefits in the United States. We merged U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics establishment-level data on employee training, benefits, and rates of occupational injuries and illnesses with days away from work, obtaining a data set on 2,358 establishments, 62% of them with at least 250 employees. Weighted two-stage regression models were used to provide a rare look at the effect of training, benefit packages, and workplace practices on occupational injury rates. The results suggest that safety training increases the reporting of injuries and illnesses but also has real safety effects on days-away-from-work incidents, especially in smaller firms. While overexertion incidents were resistant to safety training, toxic exposure events were reduced in manufacturing establishments with a formal safety training program. Wellness programs and Employee Assistance Programs were associated with lower days-away-from-work injury and illness rates and costs in large firms where they are more common. Workplace innovations like total quality management significantly increased the reporting of days-away-fromwork injuries and illnesses.

Workplace Injuries and Diseases: Prevention and Compensation, 2005

The facts presented in this study and the observations and viewpoints expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors. They do not necessarily represent positions of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

2022

Work accounts for one-third of one's adult life. If the state of the place of work is unfavorable – regardless of where, when, how large, or what kind – negative health consequences are certain to occur. When it comes to health and safety in the Middle East (ME), it is worth mentioning that the ME Safety Statistics have shown significant changes in safety rules over the last decade. However, considerable work still needs to be done; this will be true for regions all over the world until all workplaces are accident-free. In this paper, the occupational health and safety (OHS) in Lebanon — a small country in the Middle East, with an area of 10,452 km2, a population of 4 million, and nearly 2 million refugees from neighboring ME countries, and a service-oriented economy — is examined. The study aims to outline the magnitude of the problem and identify areas for potential research and interventions.

AAOHN Journal, 2009

A lift team was implemented at an urban medical center in the Pacific Northwest to reduce employee injuries. The lift team consisted of a lift technician and a nursing assistant both trained in lifting techniques. The trial lasted 1 year. Data on employee injuries and day versus night injuries before and during lift team implementation are presented. Results do not show the same reduction in employee injuries described by previous authors. Possible explanations are related to the use of the lift team and policy development. I n 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 1,183,500 non-fatal occupational injuries resulting in lost time from work. Non-licensed health care workers experienced the third highest number of lost workdays due to injuries, with 526 workers injured per 10,000 (BLS, 2008a). In this same year, employee lifting injuries represented a significant number of the total claims for health care workers. Tasks such as lifting, turning, and ambulating patients are associated with musculoskeletal strains and back injuries, accounting for more than 30% of all lost-time cases (Caska, Patnode, & Clickner, 1998; Haiduven, 2003). Nurse aides, orderlies, and attendants suffered 27,590 musculoskeletal disorders, being surpassed only by occupations requiring heavy physical labor (e.g., miscellaneous laborers and freight, stock, and material movers). In the same year, registered nurses (RNs) reported 9,200 musculoskeletal disorders, the fifth highest occupation (BLS, 2008b). Nursing personnel are thus one of the oc

Journal of Safety Research, 2015

Introduction: Although occupational injuries are among the leading causes of death and disability around the world, the burden due to occupational injuries has historically been under-recognized, obscuring the need to address a major public health problem. Methods: We established the Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index (LMWSI) to provide a reliable annual metric of the leading causes of the most serious workplace injuries in the United States based on direct workers compensation (WC) costs. Results: More than $600 billion in direct WC costs were spent on the most disabling compensable non-fatal injuries and illnesses in the United States from 1998 to 2010. The burden in 2010 remained similar to the burden in 1998 in real terms. The categories of overexertion ($13.6B, 2010) and fall on same level ($8.6B, 2010) were consistently ranked 1st and 2nd. Practical application: The LMWSI was created to establish the relative burdens of events leading to work-related injury so they could be better recognized and prioritized. Such a ranking might be used to develop research goals and interventions to reduce the burden of workplace injury in the United States.