NIOSH Update: Aging Workers at Higher Risk of Death, Severe Injury, Conference Report Suggests Ways to Keep Workers Healthy and Productive

Policy Shifts on Work Environment, Health Promotion, Continued Research Needed to Maintain Healthy U.S. Workforce

A report of conference presentations and discussions among participants from the National Academies of Science, universities and research institutions, and representatives of professional associations, industry and labor, recommends attention to workplace environments to maintain “work ability” as workers age, along with legislative fixes and research to fill in knowledge gaps for keeping workers healthy and productive.

According to researchers using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, older workers are more severely injured and die with greater frequency from work-related injuries than younger workers. Older workers also have longer recovery periods than younger workers. These findings raise health care delivery and economic issues for the nation, as more workers are choosing to delay retirement due to collapsed 401(k) plans and savings. BLS uses workers age 55 and older in its calculations, although the rates rise sharply for those workers over age 65. Other agencies and organizations define the term as age 50 or 55 and up. The Department of Labor uses age 40 as a starting point for “older worker.”

“The issue of healthy aging is critically important as the U.S. economy is revitalized. As we go forward in time, the demand for workers will grow but fewer workers will be entering the workforce and a larger proportion of the workforce will be older. This is a simple reality of demographics,” said National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Director John Howard, M.D. “Having a healthy, productive workforce will help sustain economic growth in the decades ahead. We must take steps now to help all workers stay safe and healthy at work as they age. We must also take steps to address the special needs of older workers who, more and more, will be staying on the job past traditional retirement age.”

The conference, held Feb. 17-18, 2009, at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md., paid particular attention to workers in physically demanding jobs, such as construction and health care. Health care cost-containment has meant longer work hours and increased stress among health care workers, which has led to a shortage of nurses. Thirty-nine percent of RNs were 45 years or older in 2002.

Construction workers already suffer the highest number of fatalities in any U.S. industry.  But the death rate among construction workers 55 years and older was nearly 80% higher than that of construction workers under 35 in 2007. And like the rest of the workforce, the average age of a construction worker is rising; it was 40.4 in 2008, which is 4.4 years older than in 1985. The average retirement age among construction workers is 61.

“Our nation loses an average of four construction workers every workday to a job-related incident – and that’s been consistent for more than a decade,” said Pete Stafford, executive director of CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training, one of the conference’s co-sponsors. “As we start to rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and venture into green jobs, we want to make sure jobsites do not become a source of pain and death for older workers who have so much to contribute, especially in mentoring younger workers.”

Howard believes the conference confirms and expands on a 2004 report from the National Academies of Science that recognized the deteriorating conditions facing an aging workforce, to the detriment of workers, their families, and businesses. “Health and Safety Needs of Older Workers” made clear recommendations to increase research efforts toward preventing work-related injury, illness and fatality among aging workers.   These recommendations have yet to be adopted.

“The discussions and recommendations from the conference point to steps that can be taken to address needs identified in the 2004 report  that were never acted upon,” said Jordan Barab, acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for  the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). “As those discussions make clear, a sustainable workforce will be a critical component of a secure and prosperous 21st century economy. The work we do now is an investment in a stronger workforce for tomorrow.”

The Healthy Aging for Workers conference was funded through grants from NIOSH and CPWR. The Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics and the Society for Occupational and Environmental Health were conference sponsors. Additional co-sponsors were AARP, OSHA, the American Public Health Association, the Veterans Administration, and the University of Maryland Work and Health Research Center.

The full conference report and presentations from national and international researchers on occupational health and safety issues can be found on the Society for Occupational and Environmental Health’s Web site.

I recently attended the 20th Chicagoland Safety and Health Conference.  During the day I asked as many safety professionals as possible what was the #1 incident on their OSHA 300 log.  To a person the response was Slips, Trips and Falls (STF).  Because this is one of the most common incidents I thought it would be good to revisit an old article published on this site about 2 years ago.  I hope you find this interesting and useful.

Employees don’t just slip and fall because they are careless. Hidden risks exist at all work sites.  Slips and falls are complex events. If you focus on just one part of the problem, such as a cracked tile or slippery floor, the risk will still exist. Instead, attack the whole problem with a systems approach that analyzes your organization and pinpoints areas needing attention.
Taking Control
Same-level slips and falls are the second-leading cause of disabling workplace injuries. They cost private industry more than $5 billion in direct costs alone each year. The indirect costs for hiring and training replacement workers, increased absenteeism, and decreased productivity are estimated to be three to five times higher. But slips and falls are not unavoidable “acts of God” due to employee carelessness or bad luck. You can control them. Here’s how.Same-level slips and falls are the second-leading cause of disabling workplace injuries. They cost private industry more than $5 billion in direct costs alone each year. The indirect costs for hiring and training replacement workers, increased absenteeism, and decreased productivity are estimated to be three to five times higher. But slips and falls are not unavoidable “acts of God” due to employee carelessness or bad luck. You can control them. Here’s how.First, secure management buy-in. Employees don’t just slip and fall because they are careless. Hidden risks exist at all work sites. You can demonstrate to managers the cost and the cause of slip-related injuries with photos of potential hazards, qualified worker observations, and slipperiness measurements from work sites. Managers often don’t realize that a leading portion of their loss comes from preventable slips and falls; by illustrating the negative impact on the bottom line and the potential positive outcome from a system approach, you will get management buy-in.

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