site ID

Public Safety Program

Burden, Need, and Impact

	Wildland firefighters

There were approximately 2.86 million workers in Public Safety in 2015, which is 1.92% of the workforce. This sector accounted for 3.2% of the fatalities for U.S. workers. It also had approximately 120,100 occupational injuries and illnesses, 3.3% of the total.1 Although injuries and illnesses are challenging to track and are frequently undercounted, this is the best estimate available at this time.2

Attention in the public safety and emergency response community is now shifting focus to the prevention of workplace injuries and illnesses. The Public Safety Program recognizes the substantial burden of work-related injury and illness; however, research is somewhat limited. Substantial gaps in knowledge on worker population and characteristics of injury and illness rates among public safety workers still exists.

Quality, real time data, which provides detailed insight into the characteristics and circumstances surrounding public safety workers’ injuries and illnesses, could provide valuable information. This data will assist in identifying burden and trends, subsets of the public safety population most at risk for occupational injuries or illnesses, and circumstances and activities that put workers at risk for injuries or exposure at work. A better understanding of work-related risk factors is needed for each occupation. This information will help to develop and validate focused, evidence-based interventions, recommendations, and prevention information for the Public Safety Sector. In addition, interventional and translational research is needed to reduce the burden of these occupational injuries and illnesses.

NIOSH strives to maximize its impact in occupational safety and health. The Public Safety Program identifies priorities to guide investments, and bases those priorities on the evidence of burden, need, and impact . The priority areas for the Public Safety Program are listed below.

1 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. (2015). Current U.S. Workforce Data by NORA sector. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/default.html
2 Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2016). An update on SOII undercount research activities. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/article/an-update-on-soii-undercount-research-activities.htm

Top