Enhancing the Infrastructure to Safeguard the Health of America's Work Force

This document presents a plan for safeguarding the health of America's workers. This plan was developed by the Occupational Health and Safety Forum of New York and New Jersey, a coalition of health and safety specialists from trade unions, industry, government and academia… The Forum is organized around the New York-New Jersey Educational Resource Center, a consortium of six universities in the New York metropolitan area whose educational and research training endeavors form the primary means through which the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) fulfills its mandate to support professional training in the region.

This document provides a blueprint for improving the health and safety of workers in New York, New Jersey, and across the nation and, thus, for strengthening national productivity. The views in the report are non-partisan. They reflect the consensus opinion of specialists from industry, labor and academia, each of whom has worked for many years in the field of occupational health and safety. This document and its recommendations are not intended to be comprehensive. Important issues about which it may be difficult to find consensus, such as reform of OSHA, the overhaul of workers' compensation and others, are, therefore, not included in this document. Rather, this plan focuses on revitalizing the infrastructure of occupational health through which new approaches to addressing the health of workers might be undertaken. Through implementation of this plan, the region and the nation can expect to reduce its health care costs and increase the well-being of this and future generations of Americans.