Healthy People Consortium Meeting and Public Hearing
"Building the Next Generation of Healthy People"
November 12 and 13, 1998
Capital Hilton, Washington, D.C.

Occupational Safety and Health

Several suggestions were made regarding the Goal Statement. It was mentioned that many small businesses felt uncomfortable with the term"worker health and safety". One recommendation was to change this to"promoting safe and healthy work environments". Another suggestion was to change this to "promoting safe and healthy work environments and communities". There was discussion that including the term "environments" in this section might lead to confusion with the environmental chapter of HP2010.

Participants felt there should be a statement explaining the process used for determining reduction levels of measurable objectives.

Terminology:

Terms to be added to this section include: Musculoskeletal Disorders, Cumulative Trauma Disorder, Repetitive Strain Disorder (may be all part of same definition).

There were questions on the definition of noise induced permanent threshold shift. The importance of using terms familiar in industrial settings was stressed. Noise-related terminology should be defined.

Define the term ‘aerosolized' as it relates to latex allergies.

Objectives: Objective 2-Reduce Work-related injuries

Need to promote healthy workers (either here or in overview). More integration with health promotion portions of HP2010. Shift work and it's attendant hazards should be addressed as well as mandatory overtime, perhaps including with work schedules and adding explanatory details.

Objective 8-Hearing Loss

Need to focus on engineering techniques that reduce noise levels; identify the need for worker training; and allow the individual worker to take responsibility for personal hearing protection. This must be done in a manner that does not allows employers to avoid feasible engineering controls, but instead should focus on combined efforts. It was suggested that more public health announcements about hearing loss might help implement objectives. The NIOSH criteria document should be cited in this objective. Adding a goal with the objective of providing incentives for manufacturers to reduce noise hazards in the manufacturing stage was also suggested.

Objective 12-Latex Allergies

Need to move beyond the health care industry to include all industries regularly using latex, such as food service workers. List in detail the four CDC recommendations mentioned in this objective. Add an objective to reduce latex exposures wherever possible.