| OIPRTP Overview
Recent Institute of Medicine publications, identified serious deficiencies in graduate preparation in injury prevention within Occupational Safety and Health education and training; yet, such preparation is considered essential in reducing the burden of occupational injury which accounts for a major proportion of lost work days and overall costs to employers as well as significant consequences to the injured employees. Numbers of personnel trained to conduct research and serve as academic faculty in the occupational injury prevention area are totally inadequate to meet existing needs at the regional and national levels.
The Occupational Injury Prevention Research Training Program (OIPRTP) addresses these deficiencies and builds on extensive high quality training and research experiences dating back to 1980 that have achieved national and international recognition. This program incorporates advanced training through curriculum and trainee research opportunities that involve multidisciplinary collaborations with experts in occupational injury epidemiology, engineering and human factors/ergonomics, safety, medicine, and the social sciences including occupational psychology. Integration of public health/epidemiology and engineering approaches, in concert with educational and legislative approaches, enables students to interact with all of the disciplines, represented in public health and occupational health and safety, thereby, encouraging them to use resources beyond their own area of interest and to apply their knowledge across a broad range of situations. Graduates will be prepared to assume academic and research positions in various institutions including academic institutions, corporate and industrial settings, health agencies, and health care facilities.
Background Information: The Occupational Injury Problem
Unintentional injuries continue to rank number one in terms of working years-of-life lost in the United States. Combined sources of injury data indicated that occupational injuries accounted for five percent of all deaths from unintentional injuries and 19 percent of all disabling injuries in 2001; these injuries resulted in 85 million lost work days during 2001, and an estimated 65 million future work days lost. The total direct and indirect costs of work-related injuries were conservatively estimated at $132 billion and accounted for 26 percent of all unintentional injury costs. Workers in agriculture, mining, construction, and the transportation/public utilities industries are at greatest risk for occupational injuries.
In addition to these considerations, is a need to recognize the true boundaries of the work environment. For example, the fact that up to 40 percent of all occupational fatalities in the United States are associated with motor vehicle crashes, the major cause of occupational death, identifies a need for occupational injury prevention and control programs that incorporate a scope beyond the physical confines of a workplace. Of further concern is the fact that time lost from off-the-job injuries is frequently a greater problem than for injuries incurred on-the-job and, also, results in significant costs to both the employers and employees. There is also evidence that children and adolescents experience occupational injuries disproportionately. While the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which includes federal provisions for child labor protection, generally applies to those under the age of 16 years, 14 and 15 year-olds can be employed in many retail and service jobs. In agriculture, children under the age of 12 years, can work on their parents' farms or on farms small enough to be excluded from the provisions of the act and in certain seasonal work. Women and minority workers may also be at high risk in certain occupations.
Intentional injuries are also recognized as a major problem in the work environment. Little is known about non-fatal, intentional injuries in the workplace, but homicide is the third major cause of occupational fatality, overall, and the second major cause for female workers; up to 11 percent of all traumatic occupational fatalities are the result of homicides, exceeded, currently, only by motor-vehicle and fall-related deaths. Evidence from recent research conducted by OIPRTP faculty, has revealed significant problems pertinent to non-fatal violence among certain occupational groups that result in major physical, psychological, and sociological consequences to the victims and high financial costs both to the victims and to the employers.
The Program
The OIPRTP, in concert with programs in Occupational Medicine, Occupational Health Nursing, and Industrial Hygiene, is part of the nationally funded Midwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety. This program provides a multifaceted approach to advanced academic and research training, with a primary goal to prevent and control occupational injuries.
The degree provided, from this program, is a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Environmental Health. Candidacy for the Ph.D. program requires completion of the master's degree (or the equivalent) in Environmental Health or related field. The necessary course work associated with the doctoral program is determined with the advisor (with program/graduate school approval) and is based upon the primary focus and proposed research endeavor of each student.
Students will be engaged in course work and research in the general realm of injury epidemiology and control. Some examples of past and current research efforts, both epidemiological/surveillance and clinical investigations, have included agricultural trauma, low-back injury, repetitive motion trauma, health practices and injuries in the workplace, work-related amputations, and work-related violence. Integral to these efforts is a basic understanding of dynamic interactions among the agents/energies (mechanical, chemical, thermal, electrical, radiation, etc.) and the hosts/worker populations within the environment. The OIPRTP addresses numerous research areas identified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). These major NORA priority areas (and the respective categories addressed) are as follows: Disease and Injury (Traumatic Injuries); Work Environment and Workforce (Mixed Exposures/chemical and physical); Special Populations at Risk (Elderly, Women, Children, Minorities); Research Tools and Approaches (Exposure Assessment Methods; Social and Economic Consequences of Workplace Illness and Injury; Surveillance Research Methods).
Trainee Selection
Prospective trainees are selected by the same criteria and process as other students applying for admission to the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH); applications are first directed for review to the Graduate School and subsequently reviewed by the EOH Admissions Committee and, then, by Directors of the relevant programs pertinent to admission criteria and suitability for the Division/Program. Undergraduate preparation includes a bachelor of science degree, incorporating course work in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and the biological sciences; basic computer programming knowledge is required upon admission. There must also be strong evidence of the ability to conduct a comprehensive research effort. Application materials, including undergraduate grade point average and relevant entrance examination scores, are considered in total.
Doctoral candidacy involves: writing an RO1-type grant application relevant to their identified research project; completing an intensive written examination that addresses their coursework; and successfully completing an oral examination that involves questioning of their proposal and pertinent coursework. All students must complete a thesis reflecting scientific inquiry; at least two papers prepared for submission to peer-reviewed journals are incorporated within this thesis, in addition to other major sections. Based on the research activities of the faculty, and the interest of the student, contracts for research efforts between a faculty adviser and student are established. Opportunities among the identified faculty are extensive, and include a variety of efforts as previously identified.
Numerous opportunities are available for graduate studies in the OIPRTP. Stipends and tuition benefits are provided for qualified applicants and in consideration of total available funding
Summary - OIPRTP
The uniqueness of the OIPRTP is evidenced not only by the highly qualified faculty, who have experience and expertise essential to this endeavor but, also, by the quality of the curriculum and student research opportunities that have been developed to provide a unique and comprehensive approach. The evidence of a strong record in related research that has been presented at national and international levels and published in peer-reviewed journals in concert with ongoing research efforts, currently supported by other sources of funding, provide a strong base for the distinctive research training activities identified for this program. Through this program, a unique, multidisciplinary approach enables a significant contribution to the field by preparing exceptional leaders who can make significant contributions to occupational injury prevention.
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