Occupational health issues in the USA

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The occupational health and safety issues facing employers, workers, medical practitioners and researchers in the USA are numerous. Many occupational safety and health issues affecting workers in the USA cut across several industry sectors, while others are specific to a particular sector. The US National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) is a public–private partnership hosted by the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to stimulate innovative occupational safety and health research and practices. Unveiled in 1996, NORA has become a research framework for the USA. The list of NORA research priorities is long. What follows is a few of the many issues that the NORA industry sectors in the USA have identified as needing the attention of occupational safety and health researchers and practitioners.

Providing energy for the overall economy (oil and gas extraction) takes many thousands of workers involved in energy supply from fossil fuel sources and renewables. The development of the technique of hydraulic fracturing has both increased energy production quotient in the USA and has increased the size of the workforce involved in the drilling, completing, servicing and equipping wells and performing other activities in preparing oil and gas up to the point of shipment from the producing property. The list of worker risks is long. NIOSH scientists are conducting research to characterize and eliminate the risks faced by workers to respirable crystalline silica [1], volatile organic compounds, including naphthalene, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene [2], and other hazards.