New York State (NYS) is the third most populous state, with over 19 million persons residing on over 47,000 square miles of land. With over 9 million full-time employees in 2007, NYS is also home to a diverse workforce. Because NYS is so large and diverse, there is a wide spectrum of occupational fatalities, injuries and diseases that occur among the population. An integrated program is necessary to monitor and understand the occupational health status of New Yorkers, and then to prevent future occurrence of occupational diseases and injuries. The systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, dissemination and use of health data is essential to understand the health status of a population, to assess progress, and to plan effective prevention programs. Therefore, the NYS Department of Health's Bureau of Occupational Health plans to use funds from this Program Announcement to expand and improve its current occupational health surveillance programs. The Bureau will seek input from stakeholders in identifying relevant state-specific issues and priorities for occupational surveillance, and will request their assistance with the creation and dissemination of outreach materials to high-risk populations. Data collected by the Bureau of Occupational Health will be incorporated into other public health tracking systems including the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologist's Occupational Health Indicator project, the NYS Prevention Agenda, and the NYS Community Data Clearinghouse. These data will also be further evaluated to identify high-risk industries and occupations, and populations at high-risk. Prevention strategies will then be directed towards these special populations. Intervention and outreach efforts will also be focused toward high-risk and vulnerable populations including young workers, agricultural workers, and low-income, minority, immigrant and Hispanic working populations.
| 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 |
| Tice, Cori J; Cummings, Karen R; Gelberg, Kitty H (2010) Surveillance of work-related asthma in new york state. J Asthma 47:310-6 |
