| The National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health (NIOSH), in association with its public and private
sector partners, hosted the third National Occupational Injury
Research Symposium (NOIRS) on October 28, 29, & 30, 2003 at
the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. NOIRS
is the only forum for the prevention of occupational injury research
findings, data, and methods.
NOIRS 2003 was a means of implementing the National
Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) for traumatic occupational
injuries. NORA was formulated through the cooperative efforts
of business, labor, academic, safety and health, and government
leaders under the sponsorship of NIOSH.
This symposium served numerous objectives aimed
at preventing traumatic occupational injury through research and
prevention. They included:
- Presentation of current research findings.
- Fostered collaboration among researchers from a broad range
of disciplines and perspectives, and explored underutilized
disciplines and topic areas.
- Identified some best practices in the area of intervention.
- Explored the cost-effectiveness of injury prevention strategies
and interventions.
- Showcased innovative and high technology approaches to
research and prevention.
- Promoted the implementation of NORA.
- Provided a forum for reporting and fostering research needs
identified in the NORA report, Traumatic
Occupational Injuries: Research Needs and Priorities.
Questions that were addressed include:
- What are the latest traumatic occupational injury research
findings?
- What are emerging problem areas in workplace trauma?
- How is technology being applied to occupational injury
research and prevention?
- What activities are being done to implement NORA in the
area of traumatic occupational injury?
- What are the best practice intervention and prevention
strategies and which strategies do not work? In what specific
workplaces and under what circumstances?
- What are the economic costs of traumatic occupational injuries
and how cost-effective are the prevention strategies?
- What are current and emerging research areas and disciplines?
- What are the trends in traumatic occupational injury and
fatality incidence? In research tools, techniques, and methods?
In prevention?
- What specific workplace risks are faced by adolescents,
older adults, minority workers, non-English-speaking workers,
low-literacy workers, and other special populations?
- How can researchers and practitioners in different sectors
and disciplines better collaborate and coordinate their activities
to reduce traumatic occupational injuries?
- What methods are available to assess, quantify, and compare
traumatic occupational injury risks?
Occupational injury researchers from various
disciplines attended and shared their research. Participants included:
- Safety researchers
- Safety practitioners
- Health care professionals
- Administrators
- Epidemiologists
- Engineers
- Manufacturers
- Communication Researchers
- Health and science communicators
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- Regulators
- Employers
- Policy makers
- Insurers
- Students
- Advocates
- Workers
- Educators and trainers
- Others interested in attending
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The symposium consisted of contributed oral presentations
in concurrent sessions, organized sessions around topics of special
interest, and a poster session. Opening and closing plenary sessions
featured invited speakers who are among the leaders in the fields
of public health, safety science, and injury research and prevention.
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