The Division of Safety Research (DSR) serves as the focal point for the Institute's traumatic occupational injury research program. The Division's programs are organized around the public health approach to occupational injury prevention. DSR programs encompass surveillance, analytic epidemiology, protective technology and safety engineering, and health communication through:

• Surveillance Systems
  DSR maintains a number of fatal and non-fatal injury surveillance systems which are used to prioritize research needs, target prevention efforts, and monitor trends. NIOSH developed the National Traumatic Occupational Fatalities (NTOF) surveillance system, which provides data on the causes and nature of workplace deaths occurring from traumatic injury. The system currently contains information on more than 100,000 worker deaths in the United States that occurred from 1980 through 1998. The Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) system consists of epidemiologic field investigations of work-related deaths. Results of each FACE investigation provide recommendations for preventing similar events in the future. The national surveillance of nonfatal occupational injuries is conducted in collaboration with the Consumer Product Safety Commission using the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). Based on this system, there were an estimated 3.9 million occupational injuries treated in emergency departments in 1999.
  
  
• Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program
  In fiscal year 1998, Congress allocated funds for NIOSH to implement a program to conduct FACE investigations of line-of-duty deaths to fire fighters. The overall goal of this program is to better define the magnitude and characteristics of line-of-duty deaths and severe injuries among fire fighters, to develop recommendations for the prevention of these injuries and deaths, and to implement and disseminate prevention efforts.
  
  
• Childhood Agricultural Injury Prevention Initiative
  Through funding received by NIOSH through Congress in FY 1997, DSR launched a continuing initiative to prevent agricultural injury and death among children. The activities of the initiative include: conducting surveillance and research to fill critical data needs, facilitating the use of data for prevention efforts, and encouraging adoption of effective injury prevention efforts by the private and public sectors.
  
  
• Field Research
  DSR's analytic epidemiology program is aimed at determining causes and risk factors for work-related trauma, and evaluating the efficacy of interventions through epidemiologic field studies.
  
  
• Laboratory Studies
  DSR's protective technology and safety engineering programs emphasize: developing engineering controls, safe work practices, and protective equipment for the prevention of traumatic injuries and fatalities. The program conducts studies in both laboratory and field settings, and uses advanced technologies for furthering occupational safety research.
  
  
• Alaska Field Station
  From 1980-1989, Alaskan workers died at a rate approximately five times the national rate. After identifying the State as the highest-risk State for job-related injuries, DSR established a research field station in Anchorage in 1991. Since the establishment of the field station, dramatic changes have occurred: there has been a 49% decline in work-related deaths since 1991; commercial fishing deaths decreased 67% during the same period, and there has been a persistent and marked decrease in helicopter logging-related fatalities.