Occupational health hazards continue to contribute to disease, disability and premature death in Wisconsin. Every year Wisconsin averages 101 fatalities and more than 150,000 injuries in the workplace. The state health plan, Healthiest Wisconsin 2010 (HW 2010) recognizes the importance of providing healthy workplaces and outlines strategies to prevent these incidents from occurring. HW 2010 calls for expanding capacity of occupational surveillance as one strategy to meet the vision of """"""""healthy people in healthy places."""""""" The goal of this grant proposal is to enhance the existing Wisconsin occupational safety and health surveillance system. This will be done by adding new priority data collection areas, occupational asthma and hearing loss, to Wisconsin's existing occupational surveillance activites;by moving forward with the expansion of the communication and partnership network with the development of educational documents, presentations, attendance at meetings and using technology to disseminate information;and by implementing effective interventions to meet programmatic goals. An innovative approach to simultaneously expand the partnership network, leverage their expertise, and increase the capacity for effective interventions is through the use of mini-grants. Our Bureau has a history of successful implementation of this approach. The Wisconsin Occupational Health Program will write and administrate mini-grants as a cost-effective and time efficient means of intervention development, implementation and evaluation. This grant will enable the use of proven strategies to move the Wisconsin Occupational Health Program and its Surveillance System forward by expanding surveillance capability, enhancing partnerships and implementing effective interventions.
| Oguss, Madeline; Rogers, Pamela; Anderson, Henry (2010) Occupational respiratory health: a survey of Wisconsin workers who wear respirators. WMJ 109:130-5 |
