Category: Economics

Economic Security and Worker Well-being

  The future of work incorporates ongoing and future changes to the workplace, work, and workforce. Understanding the adaptations in how work is being performed and the associated consequences on worker safety, health, and well-being is essential and requires sustained attention from occupational safety and health researchers and their partners. To meet the challenges and Read More >

Posted on by Tapas Ray, PhD, and Sarika Abbi, MPA1 Comment

Work Flexibility and Worker Well-being: Evidence from the United States

  Work flexibility can have positive and negative consequences for workers and their families, employers, and society overall. [1,2] For workers, it is increasingly recognized as an essential determinant of their well-being. Workers seek flexibility to address their personal and family needs, including childcare, eldercare, schooling, and healthcare. Flexibility in terms of work location and Read More >

Posted on by Tapas K Ray, PhD, and Regina Pana-Cryan, PhD6 Comments

Economic Security during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Healthy Work Design and Well-being Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic is adversely affecting worker well-being in many ways, including through decreased economic security. Economic aspects of overall health and well-being, along with physical, psychological, and social aspects, are a fundamental focus of the NIOSH Healthy Work Design and Well-being Program (HWD). The mission of HWD is to protect and advance worker safety, Read More >

Posted on by Rene Pana-Cryan, PhD; Tapas Ray, PhD; Tim Bushnell, PhD, MPA; and Brian Quay, MS4 Comments

Understanding the Economic Benefit Associated with NIOSH Research and Services: A Second Report of NIOSH Impact by RAND

NIOSH continues to quantify the benefits of its research and services in terms of lives saved, injuries or illnesses averted, or increases in worker productivity. Three new case studies highlight the economic benefits of personal dust monitors for coal miners, improved ambulance design, and improved amputation surveillance. These case studies are presented in a new Read More >

Posted on by John Howard, MD; Tim Bushnell, PhD, MPA; Rene Pana-Cryan, PhD; Brian Quay, MS; and Tapas Ray, PhD1 Comment

Injured Workers More Likely to Die from Suicide or Opioid Overdose

Drug overdoses and suicides have been rising since 2000 and are major contributors to a recent decline in US life expectancy. The opioid crisis is largely to blame, with a record 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017.[1] Suicide rates in 2016 have increased 30% from 1999.[2] Case and Deaton have called these “deaths of despair.”[3] In Read More >

Posted on by Katie M. Applebaum, ScD; Abay Asfaw, PhD; Paul K. O’Leary, PhD; Andrew Busey, BS; Yorghos Tripodis, PhD; and Leslie I. Boden, PhD14 Comments

Understanding the Economic Benefit Associated with NIOSH Research and Services: A New Analysis of NIOSH Impact by RAND

Do you ever wonder if NIOSH research and services yield a positive economic benefit to workers, employers, and society? Assessments of the impact of worker safety and health research and services often involve statistical analyses of written publications or qualitative analyses conducted by subject matter experts. Such assessments do not quantify the economic return on Read More >

Posted on by John Howard, MD; Tim Bushnell, PhD, MPA; and Rene Pana-Cryan, PhD 2 Comments

Occupational Safety and Health Economics Workshop

In early September 2016, researchers from Canada and the U.S. convened a workshop in Montreal to analyze current and emerging issues in the economics of worker safety and health, and to formulate potential collaborative research aiming to improve and standardize economic metrics of worker injury and illness, including metrics of the under-recognized burden for workers Read More >

Posted on by Rene Pana-Cryan, PhD; Debbie Hoyer, MPH; Paul-Émile Boileau, BSc, MSc, PhD; and Martin Lebeau, BSc, MSc 4 Comments

Workplace Health Is Public Health

It’s National Public Health Week.  Those of us who work in workplace safety and health know that workplace health is an integral part of public health. While “Creating a Healthy Workplace” is one of the five themes of National Public Health Week, the role of workplace health in Public Health is not always clear to the general public. If you Read More >

Posted on by Frank Hearl, PE 22 Comments

Making the Case for Paid Sick Leave

Does it make economic sense for employers to offer or expand paid sick leave benefits to their employees? A new NIOSH study published in the American Journal of Public Health reported that workers with access to paid sick leave were 28% less likely overall to suffer nonfatal occupational injuries than workers without access to paid Read More >

Posted on by Abay Asfaw, PhD; Regina Pana-Cryan, PhD; Roger R. Rosa, PhD 35 Comments

Getting Closer to Understanding the Economic Burden of Occupational Injury and Illness

A recent landmark paper by J. Paul Leigh shows that the annual direct and indirect costs of occupational injury and illness in the U.S. are at least $250 billion. This amount exceeds the individual cost of cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Read more about the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted of the burden of occupational illness and injury in the U.S. on the NIOSH Science Blog. Read More >

Posted on by Paul Schulte, PhD; Elyce Biddle, PhD; Frank J. Hearl, PE9 Comments