Citation

Conway GA, Lincoln JM, Husberg BJ, Manwaring JC, Klatt ML, Thomas TK. Public Health Rep. (1974) 1999; 114(6): 550-558.

Affiliation

Alaska Field Station, Division of Safety Research, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Anchorage 99508, USA. gocl@cdc.gov

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Association of Schools of Public Health)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10670623

PMCID

PMC1308539

Abstract

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) established its Alaska Field Station in Anchorage in 1991 after identifying Alaska as the highest-risk state for traumatic worker fatalities. Since then, the Field Station, working in collaboration with other agencies, organizations, and individuals, has established a program for occupational injury surveillance in Alaska and formed interagency working groups to address the risk factors leading to occupational death and injury in the state. Collaborative efforts have contributed to reducing crash rates and mortality in Alaska's rapidly expanding helicopter logging industry and have played an important supportive role in the substantial progress made in reducing the mortality rate in Alaska's commercial fishing industry (historically Alaska's and America's most dangerous industry). Alaska experienced a 46% overall decline in work-related acute traumatic injury deaths from 1991 to 1998, a 64% decline in commercial fishing deaths, and a very sharp decline in helicopter logging-related deaths. Extending this regional approach to other parts of the country and applying these strategies to the entire spectrum of occupational injury and disease hazards could have a broad effect on reducing occupational injuries.

Language: en