BEST PRACTICES: Workplace safety as a public health issue
Did you know you were adopted? Maybe not you personally, but your field of work as an “Occupational Health and Safety Specialist and Technician” was adopted by the public health workforce. Your branch of the family tree is located at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System under number 29-9010. See www.bls.gov/soc/2010/soc299010.htm. Occupational activities under this number include: “Review, evaluate, and analyze work environments and design programs and procedures to control, eliminate, and prevent disease or injury caused by chemical, physical, and biological agents or ergonomic factors.” If this is what you do, then your occupation is part of the public health workforce. Your branch of the family tree sprouts from SOC number 29-0000 Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations. Occupational titles under 29-0000 include physicians and surgeons, pharmacists, optometrists, audiologists, and nurses.
Adoption may not be the most correct description. More specifically, the public health workforce sought you out while conducting genealogy in the report: The Public Health Workforce: An Agenda for the 21st Century(www.health.gov/phfunctions/pubhlth.pdf). The report recommended new occupational categories for the field of public health including “Occupational Safety and Health Specialist” that include job titles such as industrial hygienist and safety inspector. The category holds whether one works in a public or private organization. As a result of the recommendation, you now have BLS’s official sanction that your occupation is no longer an orphan child that may live with a small family in the house of ASSE, AIHA, IHMM or whatever. You are part of the large family of public health with relatives of great importance.
As an orphan occupation you may have felt isolated and marginalized. As part of the public health family, however, your occupation to keep workplaces safe integrates into a healthy society far more than you may have ever imagined.
In December 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued their Healthy People 2020 agenda, “the nation’s new 10-year goals and objectives for health promotion and disease prevention.” See www. healthypeople.gov/2020/default.aspx. According to the HHS, Healthy People 2020 “is the product of an extensive stakeholder process that is unparalleled in government and health. It integrates input from public health experts, a wide range of federal, state and local government officials, a consortium of more than 2,000 organizations, and perhaps the most importantly, the public.”
Within Healthy People 2020, safety of workplaces is found in the new category “Social Determinants of Health.” What’s in this category beside safety of workplaces? Among other things there is quality of education. Social determinants of health hold to the premise that people who live in neighborhoods with safe parks, good schools, and high employment rates are provided with some of the key requirements to better health. Moreover, according to HHS, “Improving the conditions in which people live, learn, work, and play and addressing the interrelationship between these conditions will create a healthier population and a healthier workforce.” Further, “Integrating health policy efforts with those related to education, housing, business, transportation, agriculture, media, and other areas outside the health sector will ultimately improve the health, safety, and prosperity of the Nation.”