According to research, the health of employees in Pennsylvania and throughout the country may be affected by stress in their workplace. This is one of many findings that has caused the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to change its focus from looking at workplace injuries and illnesses to a focus on reducing risk through changing the workplace environment. This is known as the Total Worker Health initiative.
At Harvard University, the T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Work, Health and Wellbeing works to reduce these injuries and illnesses. For example, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the center helped implement the regular use of slings and lifts to move patients. This involved coordinating areas throughout the hospital including laundry services. By ensuring that the devices were available and used on a regular basis, the center and the hospital brought the injury rate for nurses and other staff members down.
The center has worked with other health care systems to ensure workplace safety as well. It has also been conducting research with the aim of making health workers safer. Researchers have been working extensively with the construction injury to make those workplaces safer too.
Despite these improvements, many people in these and other industries are injured each year. People who are injured on the job may be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits regardless of how they got hurt. An attorney can often be helpful in ensuring that the required claim contains all necessary information and that it is filed in a timely manner.