Occupational Disease: Addressing the Problem of Under-Diagnosis

Rosenstock L. Landrigan P. “Occupational Health: The Intersection between Clinical Medicine and Public Health”. Annual Review of Public Health 7 (1986): 337–56.

Burstein J. , and Levy B. , “The Teaching of Occupational Health in U.S. Medical Schools: Little Improvement in 9 Years.” American Journal of Public Health 84 (1994): 846–849.

Salmon J.W. , “Profit and Health Care: Trends in Corporatization and Proprietarization” in Salmon J.W. , ed. The Corporate Transformation of Health Care: Issues and Directions, New York: Baywood, 1990: 55–57.

Iglehart J. , “Managed Care,” New England Journal of Medicine 327 (1992): 742–747.

Bodenheimer T. and Grumbach K. , Understanding Health Policy, Connecticut: Appleton and Lange, Connecticut (1995), 115–116.

Himmelstein D. and Woolhandler S. , “The Corporate Compromise: A Marxist View of Health Maintenance Organizations and Prospective Payment,” Annals of Internal Medicine 109 (1988): 494–501.

Kassirer J. “Managed Care and the Morality of the Marketplace,” New England Journal of Medicine 333 (1995): 50–52.

Salmon J.W. , “Introduction” in Salmon J.W. op. cit. 5–12.

Feinglass J. and Salmon J.W. , “The Use of Medical Management Information Systems to Increase the Clinical Productivity of Physicians,” Salmon J.W. , ed., The Corporate Transformation of Health Care: Perspectives and Implications, New York: Baywood, 1994: 139–162.

Personal Communication from a representative of a large Central New York Health Insurance company.

Anitec Corp ., “Workers' Compensation Reform: A Business Competitiveness Issue,” text of a presentation made to The Southern Tier Regional Business Climate Conference, 1/13/94, Binghamton, New York.

New York State Legislation, Pilot Program for Workers' Compensation Medical and Health Care Cost Containment (1994).

Morse T. , “Adding Benefit Cuts to Bruises: The Attack on Workers' Compensation in Connecticut,” New Solutions 5 (1995): 67–73.

Salmon J.W. , “The Futures of Physicians: Agency and Autonomy Reconsidered” in Salmon J.W. , Ed., op. cit.: 125–138.

Anitec Corp. op. cit.

As an example, participants from most of the locals participating in a United Steelworkers of America, District wide, conference on Managed Care (Ithaca, NY 7/95) noted their employers changed health plans in search of lower cost.

Rodwin M. , “Conflicts in Managed Care,” New England Journal of Medicine 332: (1995): 604–607.

Baer H. , “The American Dominative Medical System as a Reflection of Social Relations in the Larger Society,” Social Science and Medicine 28, (1989): 1103–1112.

Waitzkin H. , The Second Sickness: Contraindications of Capitalist Health Care, New York: The Free Press, 1983. Chapter 6 discusses “The Micropolitics of the Doctor-Patient Relationship” and the role of the physician in controlling patient behavior through maintenance of a dominant MD/patient relationship.

Berman D. , Death on the Job, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978.

Herman E. , “The Higher Irresponsibility of Business”, Z Magazine, 10/95, 8–11.

Boden L. , “Workers' Compensation” in Levy B. Wegman D. Eds, Occupational Health, 3rd Edition, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1995: 201–221.

Stanbury M. , “Silicosis and Workers' Compensation in New Jersey,” Journal of Occupational Medicine 37 (1995): 1342–1347. This article documents that even for a well defined work-related condition like silicosis, only 31 percent of those diagnosed filed a Workers' Compensation claim. For other less well defined illnesses, the rate is no doubt lower. Physician failure to file is playing a role, perhaps a significant one, in the low claim rate.

Wallerstein N. and Weinger M. , “Health and Society Education for Worker Empowerment,” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 22 (1992): 619–635.

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Case Studies in Environmental Medicine: Taking an Exposure History, Atlanta, October 1992. This booklet contains much useful information including an occupational history form.

Senn Tarlau E. , “Playing Industrial Hygiene to Win,” New Solutions 2 (1991): 72–80.

While not documented formally, this assertion has been borne out repeatedly at safety and health training with industrial and service unions in both the private and public sectors in Upstate New York.

Materials produced by the New York Workers' Compensation Action Network (a business coalition) and the Anitec document cited above both assert this “need.” Individual employers in the Central New York area have also personally and repeatedly emphasized this desire, and some have already instituted “voluntary” programs limiting choice to company chosen physicians.

Lewis J. , “Improving Workers' Compensation through Collective Bargaining,” John Burton's Workers' Compensation Monitor, 1994: Nov/Dec (5–11).

Ibid.

Bodenheimer T. , “Private Insurance Reform in the 1990s: Can it Solve the Health Care Crisis?” International Journal of Health Services 22 (1992): 197–215.

Himmelstein D. , and Woolhandler S. “A National Health Program for the United States: A Physicians' Proposal,” New England Journal of Medicine 320, (1989): 102–108.

Plotkin S. and Scheuerman W. E. , Public Spending, Balanced Budget Conservatism and the Fiscal Crisis, Boston: South End Press, (1994): 35–67.

Navarro V. , “The Crisis of the International Capitalist Order and its Implications on the Welfare State” in McKinlay B. , Ed., Issues in the Political Economy of Health Care, New York Tavistock, (1984): 107–140.