Bibliography of Communication and Research Products 2015

Last year, as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) prepared to mark its upcoming 45th anniversary in 2016, it continued to play a vital role in protecting the safety and health of the millions of workers in the United States. Of course, in many ways, workplace risks today are different from 1971, the year after the Occupational Safety and Health Act created NIOSH. Then, our manufacturing-based economy relied upon local workers with nine-to-five jobs, employer-paid insurance, leave, and retirement benefits. Today, our primarily service-based, global economy relies upon a diverse workforce faced with safety and health concerns that our working forebears could not have imagined. From nanoparticles and robots to emergency preparedness and stress from competing work and family demands, NIOSH addresses this panoply of new issues. At the same time, the Institute continues the research necessary for further progress in controlling persistent hazards from earlier generations. These persistent hazards include traumatic injury, acute and chronic chemical exposures, and respiratory diseases like asbestosis, silicosis, and coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, also called black lung disease.

What has not changed is the NIOSH effort to prevent workplace hazards through research. Through intramural research in its laboratories, extramural research in academic institutions, and fieldwork nationwide, NIOSH studies the causes of work-related injuries, illnesses, and death, with the goal of preventing future occurrences. Investigators conduct research in the eight NIOSH sites located in Anchorage, Alaska; Atlanta, Georgia; Cincinnati, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Morgantown, West Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Spokane, Washington; and Washington, D.C. Fieldwork, however, takes them wherever workers need help, from the oil and gas well sites in the Great Plains, to the coal mines of Appalachia, and to post-fire scenes throughout the country.

To share research results and recommendations in a timely manner with the occupational safety and health community, NIOSH researchers publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals, NIOSH publications, and reports. These reports include NIOSH Control Technology Reports, Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Reports, Health Hazard Evaluation Reports, and Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports. In 2015, NIOSH researchers worked closely with state and local organizations to investigate and publicize findings in 92 reports from 30 states.

Together, NIOSH communication and research products are central to the Institute’s mission to reduce the risk of injury, illness, and death. The culmination of countless hours of innovative research each year leads to products that explain new scientific knowledge and give practical solutions that both workers and employers can use to protect their safety and health. In 2015, NIOSH-supported research led to 726 products ranging from workplace solutions to hazard alerts to peer-reviewed papers, nearly 400 of which appeared in 200 esteemed, professional journals. Table I lists the top 10 journals that published NIOSH research in 2015.

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