Occupational Health by the Numbers!

Occupational Health by the Numbers

Occupational Health includes Industrial Hygienists (IHs) who identify, evaluate, and control the health hazards at the work sites. They are the ones with “boots on the ground” that communicate with the workforce, as well as upper management to try and protect employees from occupational health hazards such as chemicals, noise, and radiation. Occupational Health also consists of Occupational Medicine Specialists (i.e., Doctors) and Occupational Health Nurses that provide the clinical and preventive health care for those employees that may have potential exposure requiring health surveillance, drug testing, disability management, and preplacement and return-to-work physicals. The IHs are the ones who identify employees that should be part of health surveillance depending on their potential for exposure and provide that information to the Occupational Medicine team. Usually, companies will send their employees to an Occupational Medicine clinic rather than having them in-house.

What do the numbers tell us?

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates worldwide there are around 340 million work-related injuries and 160 million work-related illnesses every year; therefore, work-related illnesses make up about 47% of the total worldwide injury and illness work-related cases. Out of these numbers, there are approximately 2.78 million work-related deaths of which 2.4 million are from workplace illnesses with 41% coming from exposures to hazardous substances such as chemicals and radiation. This equates to two workers dying every minute just from exposures to hazardous substances! In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that there are around 2.7 million work-related injuries and 127 thousand work-related illnesses every year. So work-related illnesses make up about 4.5% of the total US injury and illness work-related cases. For the total number of deaths, the BLS estimates that there are 5,300 from fatal work-related injuries and 55,200 (range 32,200 to 78,200) from work-related illnesses every year. As you can see, a range is given for the Illnesses because there is no all-encompassing system in place to help verify these numbers except by doing investigations of each of the cases.

When comparing both the global and US death rates for work-related injuries and illnesses, work-related illnesses make up the largest percentage of deaths with 86.3% globally and 91.2% in the US. The global cost of work-related injuries and illnesses has been estimated to be 4% of the world’s GDP equating to approximately $3 trillion. In the US, the estimated cost for work-related injuries is $192 billion and for work-related illnesses is $58 billion. However, these costs could even be higher as it has been found that worker’s compensation records miss between 23 to 53 percent of all medically attended non-fatal injuries and at least 91 percent of occupational illness deaths. Unfortunately, this leaves the larger percentage of costs for families to pay if their medical insurance does not cover it.

What is the reason for this?

Occupational illnesses come from being exposed to “the Unseen” health hazards such as chemicals, noise, and radiation meaning they are not easily detected and can take many years of exposure for signs and symptoms to appear. The major contributing factors are an increase in hazardous substances and not enough protection.

Increase in Hazardous Substances – Every 2.5 minutes a new Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) number is added to the registry with the number of chemical substances now exceeding 200 million. However, there are only 500 enforceable exposure limits to protect people from this large number of chemicals.
Not enough protection – There are about 15,000 IHs in the US with about 7,000 who have acquired the education, training, and certification to become Certified Industrial Hygienists (CIHs). It is estimated that 43 million of the 129 million full-time employees work with hazardous substances in 5 million US workplaces which means there is approximately 1 IH for every 2,866 people and 333 workplaces. In other countries, IHs are also known as Occupational Hygienists (OHs) with some being Certified Occupational Hygienists (COHs) or Registered Occupational Hygienists (ROHs). When including the 15,000 IHs from the US and another 5,000 in other countries, there are about 20,000 IHs to support the 1.4 billion employees globally that work with hazardous substances. That means there is 1 IH for every 70,000 employees which is not enough to protect all these employees. There have been recommendations that there should be 1 IH for every 200 employees to protect them from hazardous substances. Furthermore, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have expressed concern about the replacement of IH professionals since 64% are between the ages of 50 to 69. As you have read, there are simply not enough IHs to protect everyone which is reflected in the number of work-related illnesses and deaths.

A solution must be utilized by companies and organization to reverse this trend. Conducting risk assessments of workplace health hazards and then having methods to implement ongoing occupational health programs and employee health monitoring are critical not only for employee health but also to remain compliant with regulatory standards. MyTERA™ is a systematic, user-friendly, interactive IH application that guides any type of user step-by-step through a Task Exposure Risk Assessment (TERA) of occupational health hazards. It is a solution for any company size, especially the smaller companies that do not have the means to hire a full-time IH.