Occupational Safety and Health

History of Worksite Health Protection

The Industrial Revolution sparked the need to reform the working environment when the textile industry switched from human and animal power to machines. Machines allowed textiles to be produced at a rate [Page 636]much faster than before. The machines used by the textile industry had a tremendous impact on production, and soon machines and technology became the cornerstone of the U.S. workforce. The benefits of using machines and alternate forms of technology are well known (i.e., increased production), but not many people examined the negative side effects of machinery and the use of technology on workers' health. Even today, we still struggle to understand how machines, chemicals, and working environment affect workers' bodies.

From 1850 to the 1900s, Lemuel Shattuck prompted a period of organization and reorganization of legislation to promote health. His 1850 report to the Sanitary Commission of Massachusetts called for an establishment of local health boards to deal with issues such as sanitation, safety, health of children, and drug use. The Lalonde Report, a landmark publication providing clarification on the causes of diseases and death, along with a series of national and international conferences, spurred the health promotion and occupational safety movement in the United States. During the next 100 years, health promotion remained linked to occupational health. Not until the 1970s, however, did worksite health promotion and protection begin to gain strength.

Health promotion and protection provides the conduit between the science of the medical community and the U.S. workforce. The governmental organization charged with keeping every working American healthy is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) formed by President Richard Nixon on December 29, 1970. From 1970 to the present day, OSHA has helped facilitate new laws and regulations to keep the workforce safe in an ever-changing world, ranging from the first safety standards adopted for workplaces in 1971 to protecting workers against terrorism in 2001.

Fatal and Nonfatal Injuries

According to OSHA, motor vehicles cause the most deaths among working Americans. The highest rates of fatal accidents occur within the professions of transportation, mining, agriculture, forestry, fishing, construction, fabrication, laborers, precision production, craft, and repairs. However, OSHA reports a steep reduction in fatal injuries counterbalanced with an increase in nonfatal injuries and their effects on the workforce and society. The professions with the most nonfatal injuries are construction, agriculture, forestry, fishing, private industry, and mining. Anxiety, stress, and neurotic disorders comprise nonfatal injuries resulting in the largest median time away from work, more than all other nonfatal injuries combined. The only competing nonfatal injury is musculoskeletal disorders, also known as repeated muscle trauma.

...