Occupational Disease and Injury

Abstract

Occupational diseases and injuries continue to exact a societal burden on productivity, acute and chronic disease, and preventable medical costs. Occupational problems require collaboration from employers, labor, and government both for investigation and for preventive intervention. A key characteristic is the need for exposure assessment with a multidisciplinary investigative team that includes environmental scientists or industrial hygienists who can evaluate workplace characteristics needed for design, questionnaire development, quantitative assessment of exposure, interpretation of findings, and guidance for prevention. A field epidemiologic investigation often is triggered by worker or physician recognition of clusters of disease or injury. The relatively few field investigators working on occupational disease and injury provide room for many contributions. Occupational health field investigations are exciting because of the opportunity they provide to learn from other disciplines and collaborators in other agencies and because of impact.