Abstract
Throughout this past century, numerous high-profile workplace disasters occurred, some of which are listed in Table 13.1. These do not include some of the large energy industry disasters that caused long-term environmental damages, such as: the sinking of the Amoco Cadiz oil tanker off the coast of France in 1978, which was the largest oil spill of its kind in history; the partial-meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant in 1979; the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986; the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill of 1989 in Alaska; and the recent Fukushima I nuclear plant disaster in 2011. Thus, many workplace accidents take a great human toll, as well as an environmental toll. In terms of the human toll part of the equation, as noted by Smith and Carayon (2011), even though the rates of workplace injuries and deaths in the United States have been declining ever since the Bureau of Labor Statistics first began to collect such data in 1972, the sheer numbers remain quite high, and they highlight the fact that improvements in workplace safety and illness are still needed. For example, the 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed an incidence rate of 3.5 cases per 100 workers per year for nonfatal occupational injury and illness, as well as a total of 4,547 fatal workplace injuries. Moreover, in 2007, 5,488 US workers died from workplace injuries. In that same year, an estimated 49,000 deaths were attributed to work-related diseases. In addition, it was estimated that four million workers had nonfatal work-related injury or illnesses, and about half of those required a job transfer, restricted work, or time away from their jobs. In 2004, approximately 3.4 million workers received treatment at hospital emergency departments because of a work-related injury, and about 80,000 were hospitalized (CDC/NIOSH, 2004a).
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Notes
- 1.
Dr. Shapleigh is the author’s great aunt, the older sister of his maternal grandfather. She was one of the few women physicians at the time and one of the very first to practice occupational medicine. She died of typhus in the early 1930s in China where she worked as a missionary physician and teacher.
- 2.
This scenario describes a permanently disabling injury event that resulted when the author’s younger brother fell into a large tank filled with a 140 °F solution of water and phosphoric acid that was used to degrease metal components for large commercial electrical meters. He spent 6 months in the Massachusetts General Hospital burn unit and an additional 4 years in physical therapy and rehabilitation. He never was able to return to work. The event was investigated by OSHA.
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Preparation of this paper was supported by the efforts of hundreds of researchers over many years. The author’s education and research was supported by a series of research grants from the National Science Foundation, US Department of Interior, the United Nations International Labor Organization, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Cole, H.P. (2012). Workplace Injury and Illness, Safety Engineering, Economics and Social Capital. In: Gatchel, R., Schultz, I. (eds) Handbook of Occupational Health and Wellness. Handbooks in Health, Work, and Disability. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4839-6_13
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