Workplace Safety and Health - Assessing Current Practices and Promoting Change in the Profession
An injury and illness prevention program, one is a proactive process to help employers find and fix workplace hazards before workers are hurt. We know these programs can be effective at reducing injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. Many workplaces have already adopted such approaches, for example as part of OSHA’s cooperative programs.
OSHA examined the injury and illness prevention programs in eight states where the state had either required a program or provided incentives or requirements through its workers’ illness incidences by 9 percent to more than 60 percent, are discussed below: Source: Huang et al., 2009. Data based on responses from 231 U.S. companies with 100 or more employees.
• Alaska had an injury and illness plan requirement for over 20 years (1973 to 1995). Five years after the program was implemented, the net decrease in injuries and illnesses (i.e., the statewide reduction in injuries and illnesses over and above the national decrease during the same time period) for Alaska was 17.4 percent.
• California began to require an injury and illness prevention program in 1991. Five years after this requirement began, California had a net decrease in injuries and illnesses of 19 percent.
• Colorado has a program that allows firms to adopt basic injury and illness prevention program components in return for a workers’ compensation premium reduction. The cumulative annual deruction in accident was 23 percent and the cumulative reduction in accident costs was between 58 and 62 percent.
• Hawaii began to require employers to have injury and illness prevention programs in 1985. The net reduction in injuries and illnessed was 20.7 percent.
• Massachusetts Workers’ Compensation program firms receive a premium credit for enrolling in a loss management program. In the first year of this program, firms participating in the program had a 20.8 percent improvement in their loss ratios.
• North Dakota has a program under its workers’ compensation program for employers who have a risk management program. The incentive is 5 percent discount on annual workers! Compensation premiums. The risk management programs contain many of the elements of an injury and illness prevention program. They resulted in a cumulative decline for serious injuries of 38 percent over a four-year period.
• Texas had a program under its workers’ compensation commission from 1991 to 2005 which identified the most hazardous workplaces. Those employers were required to develop and implement injury and ilness prevention programs. The reduction in injuries, over a four-year period (1992-1995), averaged 63 percent each year.
• Washington began requiring establishments to have injury and illness prevention programs in 1973. Five years later the net decrease in injuries and illnesses was 9.4 percent.
OSHA also examined fatality rates and found that California, Hawaii and Washington, with their mandatory injury and illness prevention program requirements, had workplace fatality rates as much as 31 percent below the national average in 2009.
