The influence of company economic characteristics and workplace hazards on the prevalence of workplace medical testing was examined. Data were taken from 2,605 manufacturing companies that participated in the National Occupational Hazards Survey (NOHS) and the National Occupational Exposure Survey (NOES). The surveys were conducted by NIOSH and evaluated potential exposures to occupational hazards, the prevalence of medical testing, and unionization in the companies. Data on employee turnover and wages of the companies were obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Associations between the workplace characteristics and the frequency of preemployment medical testing and periodic medical monitoring were examined by logistic regression techniques. Altogether, 1,309 companies had fewer than 100 employees (small), 903 had 100 to 499 employees (medium), and 453 had 500 or more employees (large). The NOHS found that the overall proportion of companies performing periodic monitoring such as audiometric or pulmonary testing or blood, urine, or X-ray evaluations was 5 to 7%, which increased to 9 to 11% in the NOES. A larger proportion of small and medium size firms whose workers were exposed to loud noise performed more audiometric testing than those with no employee noise exposures. Otherwise, few consistent associations between workplace hazards and medical monitoring were seen. In both surveys, firms that performed medical monitoring were larger, usually unionized, and had lower employee turnover. Companies which paid higher wages were more likely to perform medical monitoring. Regression analysis revealed that larger company size, unionization, and paying higher wages were the strongest predictors of preemployment and periodic medical testing. Only weak associations were seen between the presence of occupational hazards and medical testing. The authors conclude that economic variables strongly influence the prevalence of workplace medical testing and appear to be much more important than exposure to workplace hazards, indicating that company medical testing decisions may not necessarily benefit the health of their employees.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.