occupational illness

First-of-its kind health center helps firefighters struggling with PTSD, addiction

kkrisberg — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 16:30:20 +0000

First-of-its kind health center helps firefighters struggling with PTSD, addiction

Before Patrick Morrison worked for the International Association of Fire Fighters, he was a firefighter himself. He’s experienced the horrifying and profoundly saddening events that first responders see every day. And like many other firefighters, he turned to alcohol to deal with the accumulating mental trauma.

Fortunately, Morrison got help and considers himself “in recovery” today. But many firefighters don’t. In fact, an August 2016 IAFF report noted that even though firefighters experience a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rate that’s similar to soldiers returning from combat, many fire departments don’t have the behavioral health services necessary to address the problem. Research has found that up to one-fifth of fire fighters and paramedics have PTSD. This study found in a survey of firefighters that nearly half had thought about suicide and nearly one-fifth had suicide plans.

IAFF hopes to help fill that mental health service gap with a new behavioral health center designed by and for firefighters. On March 5, the IAFF Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Treatment and Recovery officially opened its doors in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. The one-of-a-kind treatment facility was specifically created to help firefighters struggling with addiction and other behavioral health conditions, including PTSD and depression, and to exclusively serve the IAFF’s more than 303,000 members. Opening week, staff welcomed the first seven patients to the center, where active and retired firefighters can stay for more than a month of inpatient treatment.

“This has become an overriding priority for IAFF,” said Morrison, assistant to the general president for health and safety at IAFF. “If you had talked to me just five years ago, I would’ve said there wasn’t really a willingness to talk about this problem. But it’s reached a pinnacle — people are realizing that we’re all in this together and we need to find a way to address it.”

The center isn’t IAFF’s first effort on the behavioral health front. The labor union has been involved in a number of efforts to increase capacity on the issue, such as training firefighters to recognize the signs of mental crisis in their peers and offer help. However, Morrison said the magnitude of the problem came into even clearer focus in January 2015, when the IAFF’s magazine published a cover story about PTSD and the stigma that prevents firefighters from seeking help. He said reader reaction was overwhelming — “the phones rang off the hook” with firefighters asking where to find services.

“They were calling in droves with the realization that they were struggling too,” he told me.

Not long after, IAFF was approached by Advanced Recovery Systems (ARS), a behavioral health care management company, about a new facility it was opening in Upper Marlboro. ARS proposed making the facility exclusively for firefighters. IAFF said yes, as long as the center addressed both addiction and PTSD.

“That was the concept,” Morrison said. “We wanted to do it, but it had to focus on PTSD with co-occurring addiction.”

On the center’s opening day in March, more than 300 firefighters showed up in support. Everything about the 64-bed facility was built with firefighters in mind, said Abby Morris, a psychiatrist and medical director of the ARS/IAFF behavioral health center. The dorm areas are referred to as station houses, patients eat together at a long table in the kitchen like they would at work, and every morning begins with chores just like it would at the firehouse.

On the flip side, medical staff from the center were brought to IAFF’s training facility and put through the same exercises a firefighter would tackle — doing CPR, cutting a car open — to help them understand the stress of the job.

“Firefighters have a very unique culture,” said Morris, who worked as a medical consultant for the Montgomery County, Maryland, SWAT team. “They work as a team, it’s like a brotherhood. They spend days away from their families — they’re home away from home is the firehouse. …We wanted them to feel at ease (at the center).”

The center has three tracks, she said: one for addiction only, another on PTSD, depression and anxiety, and a third that addresses dual diagnoses. When I talked with Morris shortly after the center opened, she said there had been a lot of interest from firefighters dealing specifically with PTSD. The center’s aftercare goal is to use telemedicine to follow up with patients for up to 18 months after discharge as well as connect them with outpatient services where they live. Morris said everyone will leave with an outpatient plan.

Some firefighters will come to the center of their own will, others at the insistence of their employers, but Morris said a huge component of the center’s work will be safely returning firefighters to the job.

“We need to build resilience,” she said. “We want to give them the skills to manage what they have to face. These are people who have multiple layers of trauma and they have to go back into traumatic environments. So (resilience) is a huge part of our programs.”

Morris went on to say: “I want to make sure every person who comes here is treated as a human being first. The came in this world as human beings and they’ll leave as human beings and I want to make sure that part isn’t lost within their identity as a firefighter.”

Morrison at IAFF said the center will engage in research and training as well, with an ultimate goal of disseminating best practices on dealing with issues like PTSD and resiliency. He described the center as a “beta test” — in other words, if the center does result in better outcomes for firefighter health and well-being, it could prove a model for additional centers around the country.

Both Morrison and Morris acknowledged that while states and municipalities often provide for mental health services for firefighters, it’s simply not enough to meet current needs.

“This center can be a catalyst,” Morrison said. “If we do this right, we can save jobs, save families — we can save firefighters.”

For more on the new center, visit www.iaffrecoverycenter.com.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years.

kkrisberg Tue, 03/28/2017 - 12:30

Bringing the anti-asbestos movement into the future: A conversation with two young worker safety advocates

kkrisberg — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 16:17:33 +0000

Bringing the anti-asbestos movement into the future: A conversation with two young worker safety advocates

The road toward eliminating the threat of asbestos has been long, slow-moving, incredibly frustrating and littered with significant hurdles. Thankfully, advocates like Linda Reinstein, who lost her husband to asbestos-related disease in 2003, refuse to get discouraged.

As co-founder and CEO of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), Reinstein works to unite those who’ve been personally impacted by asbestos-related illness, raise awareness about the continuing threat of asbestos, and advocate for policies that reduce exposures among workers, their families and the public. Ultimately, Reinstein and her fellow advocates hope to ban asbestos in the U.S., where about 10,000 people die every year from asbestos-related illness, much of it stemming from exposures on the job.

However, addressing the complexities of asbestos exposure, illness, policy and enforcement is an incredibly difficult task and one that requires long-term advocacy and vigilance. In addition, with so many ongoing and emerging issues currently on the worker rights docket — from the fight for a living wage to the new threats posed by the so-called gig economy — an old occupational danger such as asbestos may not always get the attention it deserves. In response, Reinstein has been working to more fully engage younger occupational health and safety professionals, with the hope that they’ll carry the anti-asbestos movement into the future.

“Young occupational health and safety professionals are our future and for me, as a mesothelioma widow, I want to bring this information to the next generation,” Reinstein told me. “We’re all getting older …I want someone to pass the baton to. We have to nurture and grow young professionals to help protect Americans from the next wave of asbestos disease.”

One way Reinstein is doing that is through ADAO’s Annual International Asbestos Awareness Conference, which wrapped up its 12^th gathering in Washington, D.C., in April. During the early years of the conference, she said few young professionals attended — “we just didn’t have the name or the notoriety,” she added. Since then, she’s honed the conference’s offerings to better meet the needs of young professionals and began offering scholarships to help young people attend. During the one-day conference, young attendees get to hear from dozens of experts as well as from those living with asbestos-related illness and their families.

“Asbestos really is under the radar,” Reinstein said, adding that much of the public thinks asbestos is already banned in the U.S. “So for younger professionals, the conference can be an amazing experience.”

The Pump Handle decided to catch up with two of the young professionals who attended April’s ADAO conference. The first is Fernando Tapia, 41, a labor rights, safety and health trainer with the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, who’s been working in the occupational health and safety field for about seven years. We also spoke with Mary Kathryn Fletcher, 24, a health and safety fellow with the AFL-CIO. We asked them about their ADAO conference experience, how issues of asbestos and occupational chemical exposures fit into their work, and why unions are good for public health. Below is an edited and condensed version of our conversations.

The Pump Handle: As a young occupational health and safety professional, what made you attend this year’s International Asbestos Awareness Conference? What were some of your most compelling, surprising or informative experiences at the conference?

Fernando Tapia: I was invited by a [colleague] at SEIU. …In general, I thought it was a good way to supplement what I teach and how I teach it. It really surprised me how long asbestos has been around and how long it's been used in industry. …The most compelling part of the conference were the stories from the loved ones who suffered through the declining health of their family members. And to the credit of the organizers of the conference, they did a great job bringing doctors, activists, union reps and academics together for a common cause and making it work. One had to be there for the other to help it all come together and make sense. It was all presented with a sense of urgency, but also that it’s been and will be a long fight.

Mary Kathryn Fletcher: I attended because my colleagues at AFL-CIO had told me some wonderful things about ADAO and the work that [Reinstein] does. So when I heard about the opportunity to attend, I thought it would be a great learning and networking experience and it really was. But beyond that it was a really special conference — unlike any other one I’d been to because of the people invited. Especially as a young person, a lot of times we tend to see asbestos as something that isn’t an issue anymore — as this older occupational health issue that we don’t have to address anymore. But we definitely do and [Reinstein] did a great job of bringing that to the forefront, especially in regard to hearing from the victims.

PH: How much did you know about asbestos in the workplace before the conference? And how do you hope to use the information you gained in your day-to-day work?

FT: I knew it was a slow killer — that’s how I pictured it in my head — and I thought that the lungs were the only organs affected by it. Because of the conference, I learned it causes cancer in other parts of body, that early detection helps reduce the need for surgery, and that surgery can be an effective treatment as well. I was also able to meet new go-to people and experts in the field.

[Regarding how he’s used information from the conference] I was at a potential organizing site in the Midwest and was invited to meet with a worker who was nonunion and was working in a warehouse where he believed there were chips on the floor and insulation in the ceiling that he thought were asbestos. I remember talking to him and asking him where it was, and he said it’s all over. So we felt it was urgent to confirm this and do something about it. We were able to get a sample of chips from the wall and ceiling. …I got in touch with one of the professors that I met [at the ADAO conference] and he put me in touch with a consultant and an asbestos lab. [As of late May] we are on stand-by and as soon as the union rep is ready to use the information, we’ll go ahead and process the sample and use it in the campaign going forward.

I’m someone who really believes in making the connections. I really feel if I hadn’t gone to the conference, I would’ve been scrambling. These resources are real and effective, so the question is how do we continue this work together.

MKF: I really didn’t know that much besides the basics. I did think a little bit of it as an older issue. I knew it was big in construction, I knew it was an issue for public school employees working in older buildings. But I didn’t really think about it.

But of the things I learned [at the conference], the one thing that really spoke to me was when they talked about preventing exposure to asbestos and also curing asbestos-related disease. With asbestos, it’s one of those diseases that once you get it, you’re screwed — that’s how I thought about it. But in seeing survivors and hearing from them and hearing from people who are working on a cure, it’s a reminder to think about that in all the work we do. How do we prevent this and how do we take care of people already exposed?

Being at AFL-CIO and working on issues on a national level, it can be easy to feel removed from workers who are actually being exposed. But the conference did a really good job at saying these are the people, these are their faces, these are their families. Getting to meet the families was really impactful and something I won’t ever forget and will carry throughout my work.

PH: Like many occupational illnesses, the harmful effects of asbestos exposure can take years to manifest. It’s one of those workplace hazards that advocates often describe as a slow-moving catastrophe. Do the workers you serve encounter asbestos risks or similar workplace chemical hazards? If so, what kinds of exposure risks do they encounter? And what are the big challenges to preventing those exposures?

FT: I was able to visit a pork plant that is about 100 years old as part of the pre-work before we went in to train workers. At some point, we saw signs that there was asbestos there, but [were told] that it was under control. But that stayed in our heads. …How do they know there isn’t an exposure happening somewhere in the building? Should we be concerned as a union with the fact that so many of these meat processing plants are so old? One of the union reps that was there said that without a doubt, there’s asbestos there. So there definitely needs to be a plan around it if you hope to protect workers in a real way.

A major challenge [in protecting these workers from harmful chemical exposures] is that there are chemicals used in the production process that are unregulated. For example, there are chemicals that are used for sterilization of the food, but there isn’t a regulation through OSHA. And workers are afraid of retaliation — even when a worker has a union, you always find a situation in which the company discourages reporting, sends the wrong message through incentive programs or just outright abuses workers. Sometimes workers aren’t even aware of what they’re handling and how it will affect them today, tomorrow or later. …There’s a real challenge for unions to really address some of these issues and keep an eye on chemical exposures as best as possible.

MKF: Being a fellow at AFL-CIO, we represent almost any workforce you can think of, but the workforce that comes to mind regarding asbestos is construction with the demolition and renovation of buildings as well as school employees and other workers who work in older buildings. A lot of it is about awareness — workers might not realize they’re working in an environment that contains [asbestos] or how hazardous it is.

It’s not a disease of the past, there are people still impacted by this. There’s a lot of challenges, but we can make some headway and move forward on it.

PH: As you know, union membership has declined dramatically in the U.S. What does that decline mean for the health and safety of workers, especially in regard to harmful chemical exposures? What do you think union member decline means for public health in general?

FT: The decline in union membership has created a need to reorganize ourselves within the labor movement. For example, the sprouting up of worker centers and community coalitions that have come up with ways to catch workers who fall through the cracks. …I really feel that unions understand the need for these other groups to be part of the process. We can’t deny that we’re where we are because of unions, but if we want to continue that progress [these other groups] have to be a part of the process.

MKF: Unions have been foundational in winning health and safety improvements for all working people. They’re critical in pushing for better national and state health and safety standards. …The labor movement is essential in keeping [worker health and safety] grounded in science and in being the counter-voice to industry.

As far as public health as a whole, union workplaces set an industry standard of what a workplace should look like. We’ve seen this through wages, for example, in which union workplace wages set wages across an industry. This is true in safety and health as well. Unions benefit not only the immediate safety and health, but they increase wages, they provide paid time off and job security and all those are linked to greater public health. Workers who have these benefits tend to be healthier, so if we see those things decline…it’s a real concern.

PH: Reinstein said it’s critical to engage more young professionals like yourself in the movement to end asbestos-related disease. How do you see yourself carrying the anti-asbestos movement into the future?

FT: What she wants to do in passing the baton is a big responsibility — it involves understanding the seriousness of the work and its place in the labor movement. I really think [Reinstein] embodies the duty and responsibility [to fight on behalf of] those who have died from asbestos exposure.

There’s definitely a connection between all of this work, from wage theft to health theft — it’s something we can't afford to struggle toward separately. …I do this work to honor the legacy of my parents. They’re still alive, but spent their lives as immigrant workers. I also do it for my children so they learn to fight for themselves and to fight for the rights of others.

MKF: The AFL-CIO is actually spearheading a next-generation conversation in safety and health. …We are really trying to address this issue from all angles and we need local union members brought up through the ranks, we need experts in the field, we need physicians, researchers, industrial hygienists, we need the structure of safety and health in our unions to remain and be stronger.

We know we do great work to protect working people and we don’t want that to end. …I really hope to continue the work that such great mentors in this field have started, but I also hope to bring other people into this field so we can carry this entire health and safety movement, including the anti-asbestos movement, forward.

To learn more about the movement to end asbestos-related disease, visit ADAO.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

kkrisberg Thu, 06/16/2016 - 12:17

Kudos to ADAO! Thanks to these two young OSH professionals for sharing their experiences. Keep up the great articles Pump Handle.

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 16:43:18 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

Workers who get injured on the job already face significant challenges when trying to access the workers’ compensation system. But for workers who suffer from occupational illnesses related to chemical exposures — illnesses that can develop over long periods of time — the workers’ comp system is nearly useless, according to reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins at the Center for Public Integrity.

In another installment of the center’s eye-opening investigative series “Unequal Risk,” Hopkins explores the often insurmountable barriers that sick workers face — barriers so insurmountable that most people with occupational diseases never even bother filing a claim. In addressing insurers’ assertions that strict rules are needed to prevent workers’ comp fraud, Hopkins reports:

But J. Paul Leigh, a professor of health economics at the University of California, Davis, found major costing-shifting in the other direction. A study he co-wrote in 2004, partially funded with a federal grant and cited in a 2015 report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about how the system fails workers, estimated that more than 95 percent of ultimately-fatal occupational diseases are never covered by workers’ comp.

“It was remarkable — unfortunate, actually — the huge disparity between what workers’ compensation paid for and what epidemiological estimates consider are the true deaths attributed to occupational exposure,” Leigh said.

Taxpayers picked up nearly $27 billion in expenses from work injuries and illnesses in 2007 alone through federal programs such as Medicare, Leigh and a co-author estimated in a separate 2012 study. The biggest share of the burden fell on the workers and their families: an estimated $125 billion, or half the cost.

Among the workers Hopkins writes about is Gene Cooper, who in 2003 helped clean up a spill at the flooring plant where he worked. Seven months following the spill, he was so sick he could no longer work. He eventually succumbed to his illness in 2014. Hopkins writes:

By 2006, (Gene Cooper) was in a nursing home, not speaking, his family unable to tell whether he recognized them or not. As his body deteriorated and Parkinson’s symptoms set in, he lost the ability to swallow, and that was how he died in 2014 — choking on the aspirated contents of his stomach. It’s an image his wife cannot get out of her head.

The bills to care for him were so massive — hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth — that they gobbled up his retirement fund, his investments and his Social Security disability payments. Sandra Cooper had to tap their son’s college fund, the inheritance her late mother left her and lines of credit to keep going.

Her initial efforts to find out if work could be the cause of his illness went nowhere. The occupational medicine specialist who saw him in 2005 couldn’t help because Sandra Cooper had no idea what substances were in the spill. Her lawyer did request her husband’s medical and exposure records that year from his employer, Lancaster-based Armstrong World Industries, and came away empty-handed. Armstrong spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson said in an email that the company needed a request in writing and did not get one. Sandra Cooper said the company refused to turn over records at all unless she filed a workers’ compensation claim.

To read the full story, visit the Center for Public Integrity.

In other news:

International Business Times: Reporter Cole Stangler writes that federal regulators are accusing Murray Energy, a mining operator, of trying to silence and retaliate against workers who speak out about mine safety violations. For example, Stangler reported, official records note that Murray Energy “chided” 3,500 workers for making too many confidential safety complaints and threatened to close down operations in retaliation. Officials with the U.S. Department of Labor have accused the company of creating an “atmosphere of intimidation.” Stangler writes about a mandatory meeting that workers had to attend with CEO Bob Murray: “The CEO told the gathering that the coal industry is under siege and said workers should be grateful for their jobs. Another section of his presentation was more pointed: The company, which has come under fire for its safety record, is committed to working together, but miners are filing too many anonymous safety complaints with the federal government.”

Wall Street Journal: Alexandra Berzon reports that even though OSHA is increasing its penalties for the first time since the 1990s, the agency’s fines are still pretty tiny when compared to fines levied by other agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. The penalty hike was part of the recently signed budget bill and brings OSHA’s fines in line with 25 years of inflation. (Berzon noted that OSHA was one of only a small group of agencies that was exempted from a 1990 bill the required federal agencies to ensure fines kept pace with inflation.) Not surprisingly, industry is opposed to the fine hike. Berzon reports: “Workplace-safety experts from both industry and labor said they were caught by surprise by the new mandate, which they say will likely increase maximum fines for the most severe citations to $125,000 from $70,000 and for other serious violations to $12,500 from $7,000.”

BuzzFeed News: Sapna Maheshwari reports that Urban Outfitters is the latest retailer to get rid of on-call scheduling, in which employees are required to call in before they report to work. If they’re not needed, they simply go unpaid for the time they’ve set aside in case they were called into work. BuzzFeed News got a copy of an Urban Outfitters employee handbook, which instructed workers to call in three hours before the start of on-call shifts. In a Philadelphia Daily News column about the retailer’s use of on-call scheduling, columnist Ronnie Polaneczky writes: “The unpredictability means employees can't schedule classes, if they're in school. Or go to a second job, so they can cobble together a full-time salary. Or reliably arrange child care or pay their bills, since their cost to do both remains fixed even though their working hours don't. Their only compensation, if I read the handbook correctly, is that they get to keep their jobs so you can continue to exploit their need to make a living.”

The New York Times: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is planning to create a $15 minimum wage for all state workers, which would make the state the first to set such a wage for such a large group of public workers, reported Jesse McKinley. McKinley writes that Cuomo would use his executive authority to gradually increase the hourly wage, which would reach $15 by the end of 2018. In a statement, Cuomo said: “I believe that if you work hard and work full time, you should not be condemned to live in poverty.” In related news, fast food workers went on strike across the country today to demand livable wages and the right to organize. According to USA Today reporter Paul Davidson, today’s walk-outs were the largest so far in the fast food worker movement. Davidson writes: “Already an influential political force, the workers plan to use their new-found muscle to sway local, state and national elections exactly 12 months from now and say they'll back any candidate of any party who supports their cause. The Fight for $15 group says it will hold voter registration drives and neighborhood parties to coax the workers to the polls.”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Tue, 11/10/2015 - 11:43

Occupational injuries and illnesses in low-wage workers cost the US $39 billion in 2010

lborkowski — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 09:44:59 +0000

Occupational injuries and illnesses in low-wage workers cost the US $39 billion in 2010

Celeste wrote earlier this year about a study by health J. Paul Leigh of University of California Davis (published in the Milbank Quarterly) that calculated the economic of work-related injuries and illnesses in the US: $250 billion in 2007 alone. Celeste and I requested that he return to the data behind that estimate and calculate the medical and productivity costs of injuries to the low-wage US workforce. With funding from the Public Welfare Foundation, he produced the white paper Numbers and Costs of Occupational Injury and Illness in Low-Wage Occupations, estimating that injuries and illnesses to workers in low-wage occupations cost the US economy $39 billion in 2010. We're releasing that white paper today, along with a policy brief (also funded by PWF) that Celeste and I wrote to summarize the findings and contextualize them for policymakers: Mom's off Work 'Cause She Got Hurt: The Economic Impact of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses in the U.S.'s Growing Low-Wage Workforce.

We can't put a price tag on the emotional toll of these injuries and illnesses. The estimated 596 work-related injury deaths in 2010 among low-wage workers have left hundreds of families grieving. Leigh calculates that a total of 1.7 million workers were injured or made ill (both fatally and non-fatally) in 2010; that adds up to an incalculable amount of pain and struggle.

It is possible, though, to calculate the economic impact of these injuries, and that's what Leigh has done. He identified 65 low-wage occupations for which the median wage is at or below $11.18 per hour; earning that much for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year will yield $22,350 per year, the 2010 federal poverty level for a family of four. These occupations include retail salespeople, cashiers, food-service workers, janitors and cleaners, personal care aids, and childcare workers (among others), and the approximately 31 million workers in these jobs account for 22% of the US workforce. Leigh calculated both the medical costs and the productivity costs -- lost wages and benefits, plus "home production" tasks like cooking and childcare that workers can't perform while ill or injured -- that result from work-related injuries and illnesses among this group:

Non-fatal injuries: 1,625,152 cases, with $10.1 billion in medical costs and $18.2 billion in productivity costs
Non-fatal illnesses: 87,857 cases, with $546.4 million in medical costs and $985.6 million in productivity costs
Fatal diseases: 12,415 cases, with $4.5 billion in medical costs and $4.2 billion in productivity costs
Fatal injuries: 596 cases, with $36.9 million in medical costs and $404.6 million in productivity costs

This all adds up to $39 billion ($15 billion medical costs, $24 billion in productivity costs), which Leigh notes is comparable to the $37 billion annual cost of stroke. And the loss of $24 billion in productivity is especially damaging to low-wage workers. Only one-fifth of low-wage workers have paid sick days, so a dishwasher or cashier taking a couple of days off work to recover from an on-the-job illness or injury will likely get a smaller paycheck than usual. When you're earning only $8.83 an hour (the median wage for a dishwasher), you tend to need every cent of your paycheck to cover expenses, so two days off work can make it hard to pay rent or buy groceries. So, injuries to low-wage workers can quickly translate to reduced spending with workers' local businesses. And if injured workers find it hard to buy groceries or pay utility bills, that can affect their children's development and education. Leigh's analysis doesn't involve these kinds of long-range social impacts, but they're something policymakers should bear in mind.

In some cases, workers' compensation insurers will replace the wages workers lose when recovering from occupational injuries and illnesses -- but all too often, this doesn't happen. Not all employers are required to have workers' compensation coverage, and insurers aren't required to pay wage-replacement benefits until workers have missed three to seven consecutive shifts (laws vary from state to state). Some employers discourage workers from reporting their injuries and illnesses as work-related, which leaves those workers without access to the workers' comp benefits they'd otherwise be entitled to.

Leigh estimates that workers' compensation insurers end up covering only about one-fourth of the costs of occupational injuries and illnesses; the rest is borne by non-workers-compensation health insurers, taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid, and, of course, the workers' families. In the case of low-wage workers, their families are the least able to absorb these kinds of costs.

It's in society's best interest to reduce occupational injuries and illnesses. We write a great deal on this blog about improving workplace health and safety, and Leigh's research demonstrates that we can save billions of dollars by doing so. It's also important to strengthen the safety net -- including food stamps, Medicaid, and other assistance programs -- so that the injuries and illnesses that do occur don't cause spell financial crisis for workers and their families.

lborkowski Thu, 12/13/2012 - 04:44