New York, with the assistance of the SENSOR and ABLES programs, has established a structure for occupational disease surveillance and follow-up in New York State. Provisions of the New York State (NYS) Public Health Law mandate the reporting of a number of occupational conditions in NYS. Since 1981, the New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Occupational Health (BOH) has operated a Heavy Metals Registry for the reporting of cases of lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium poisoning, and an Occupational Lung Disease Registry for the reporting of cases of work related lung disease. Since 1991, BOH has operated a Pesticide Poisoning Registry and receives reports from healthcare providers of suspected pesticide poisonings. While all of these registries are operational, the extent to which there is active surveillance, with aggressive case finding, ascertainment and follow-up, varies. There are a number of reasons for this variability, including differences in how the diseases are diagnosed and the different reporting sources for the various registries. Additional federal resources will permit us to build upon existing reporting laws and infrastructure and expand current surveillance efforts to help us achieve the NIOSH standards for a model core surveillance system for a range of significant occupational conditions. We propose to conduct general surveillance of existing databases available to the Department of Health such as death certificates and hospital discharge data to assist with documenting the magnitude of occupational injuries and illnesses in New York, and to identify trends and industries occupations at elevated risk. Focus will be primarily upon upgrading our Occupational Lung Disease Registry; however, we will also focus more attention on conducting educational outreach for all of our registries.
| Fletcher, Alicia M; Gelberg, Kitty H (2013) An analysis of mercury exposures among the adult population in New York State. J Community Health 38:529-37 |
| Gelberg, Kitty H; Brissette, Ian F; Cummings, Karen (2011) Evaluation of a communications campaign to increase physician reporting to a surveillance system. Public Health Rep 126:19-27 |
