At a glance
Work is an important part of population and public health. It helps define characteristics of individuals and the environments they spend time in and supports their healthcare.
Work Information and Population Health
Population health refers to health within a group of people rather than one person. Organizations can improve population health by capturing, exchanging, and using standardized work information in health information technology (IT) systems, including electronic health records (EHRs). For example, this information can be used to:
- Identify patients to screen for health risks related to their work.
- Provide patients with preventive care and/or follow-up treatment after screening.
- Provide key services to vulnerable populations.
- Coordinate care among providers and refer patients to services in the community.
- Highlight and address health disparities associated with a population's employment status, occupation, industry, or work schedule.
Work information and Public Health
Incorporating standardized work information in health IT systems supports public health activities. Examples include the following:
Cancer registry reporting includes a person's usual (longest-held) occupation and industry. This information helps public health experts identify worker groups with higher cancer rates than the general population and supports interventions to mitigate occupational exposures.
Case reporting identifies:
- Workplaces where infectious disease transmission is occurring.
- Emerging relationships of health conditions with work environments.
- Targeted intervention research to prevent injury and illness.
Electronic case reporting can be used to automatically detect, analyze, and send electronic case reports to public health agencies for reportable occupational illnesses and injuries.
Nationally notifiable conditions are reported by all state public health departments to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). National public health experts use work information to analyze data from multiple states and across the nation. This analysis identifies disease risk factors and infectious disease transmission in workplaces.
The Reportable Conditions Knowledge Management System (RCKMS) stores public health electronic reporting requirements, including reporting triggers and rules logic. RCKMS is hosted on the APHL Informatics Messaging Service (AIMS) Platform. The system also hosts validation and routing services to transmit initial electronic case reports from health IT systems to public health authorities.