Office of Illness and Injury Prevention Programs
(Reports to the Office of Health and Safety)

Mission and Functions

Mission
The Office of Illness and Injury Prevention Programs supports health studies and other public health activities to determine if workers and communities surrounding DOE sites are adversely affected by exposures to hazardous materials from DOE sites. The Office strives to protect and promote the health of DOE workers, identify groups who may be at increased risk, provide a focus for intervention strategies and provide a means to measure the effectiveness of corrective actions.

Functions

• Manages and supports an illness and injury surveillance database for current workers at participating sites across the DOE complex.
• Manages and conducts epidemiologic investigations to assess the health implications of exposures to hazardous materials for workers within the DOE complex.
• Manages and supports the conduct of epidemiologic studies and other public health activities by the Department of Health and Human Services to assess the health implications of exposures to hazardous materials found in the DOE workplace.
• Reviews the results from analytic and descriptive epidemiologic studies, other public health activities, and information from site profiles to determine the need to conduct or support future epidemiologic studies or public health activities.
• Provides feedback to the Office of Health and Safety Policy regarding opportunities to enhance existing worker protection methods and policies based upon worker health studies.
• Communicates health effects information and the results of studies to all interested stakeholders within and outside DOE.
• Provides leadership and guidance to the DOE occupational medicine community, including the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) Occupational Medicine Subcommittee.
• Develops and maintains registries of DOE workers to understand the development and progression of health outcomes associated with exposures to specific hazardous materials of particular interest to DOE.
• Oversees the establishment of a chronic beryllium disease bio-specimen repository, using donated blood and tissues from participants in the Department's medical screening initiatives.
• Supports the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site (REAC/TS) to provide training in radiation medicine and medical consultation to site physicians.
• Manages the area of occupational medicine including the DOE Electronic Medical Records Initiative, Headquarters and field Healthy Workplace Initiatives and pandemic preparedness.