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University of Pittsburgh professor John Mendeloff is named the first director of the Center for Health and Safety in Workplace. This appointment is designed to help generate new cross-disciplinary research and consider enforcement issues in the improvement of workplace safety and health.
Welcome to the Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace
The mission of the RAND Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace is to conduct research and analysis that helps improve worker health and safety and reduce the economic costs of workplace accidents and illnesses. The Center provides rigorous, objective analysis and a neutral venue in which to convene stakeholders from government, industry, and labor.
With funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Center has just launched three studies described immediately below. Other new and ongoing studies are described under the "Projects" section of this web site.
Recent Publications
Demonstrating and Communicating Research Impact: Preparing NIOSH Programs for External Review — 2009
A multi-year review of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) research programs was undertaken by the National Academies. This book describes the methodology that RAND researchers developed to assist NIOSH demonstrate and communicate the impact of their activities for that review.
The Effects of Substance Use on Workplace Injuries — 2009
This paper describes associations between substance use and occupational injuries, totaling $100 billion annually in the U.S., and contains a literature review, highlights of findings, policy examination, and a discussion.
The Impact of OSHA Inspections on Lost Time Injuries in Manufacturing: Pennsylvania Manufacturing, 1998-2005 — 2008
This study examines the effects on lost-time injuries of OSHA inspections at manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania from 1998 to 2005. The effects found here are similar to those found in a national study of inspections from 1992-98, which suggests that the decline in the impact of inspections from the late 1970s through 1998 may have leveled off.
Mandatory Workplace Safety and Health Programs: Implementation, Effectiveness, and Benefit-Cost Trade-Offs — 2008
This report seeks to objectively assess a proposed OSHA standard requiring that all workplaces establish a safety and health program, as well as prior studies of its potential effectiveness, implementation and enforcement, and benefits and costs.
Occupational Safety and Health for Public Safety Employees: Assessing the Evidence and the Implications for Public Policy — 2008
This document includes a literature review of research on the topic of the specific risk factors associated with different aspects of public safety occupations, as well as analsysis of roundtable discussions, national survey data, and administrative data.
What Kinds of Injuries Do OSHA Inspections Prevent? — 2008
This study examines the types of workplace injuries and illnesses that decline after OSHA penalty inspections and after particular standards are cited. Findings indicate that the organizational response to inspections has to be considered in assessing enforcement impacts.
The Pennsylvania Certified Safety Committee Program: An Evaluation of Participation and Effects on Work Injury Rates — 2008
It is likely that implementation of the Pennsylvania Certified Safety Committee program on worker compensation premiums does prevent injuries, though not enough firms participated to produce an overall impact.
Project Work
RAND currently has 13 ongoing research projects in the field of occupational safety and health. About half deal with prevention topics and half with workers' compensation issues, including return to work and medical guidelines for treatment of injured workers. In addition to these research studies, RAND has been working under contract with NIOSH to assist staff there with strategic planning and with preparation of evidence packets for review by the National Academy of Science. Funding for the research projects comes from the California Commission on Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, NIOSH, Zenith Insurance, Duke Energy Foundation, the Alcoa Corporation, the Walt Disney Company, and the Department of Defense.
All projects »Projects sponsored by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Evaluation of the Certified Safety Committee Program
The Pennsylvania Certified Safety Committee Program provides a 5% discount on workers' compensation premiums for firms that develop certified safety committees. RAND's evaluation of this program will answer the questions:
- What is the impact of participation in the program?
- To what degree did firms actually change their behavior as a result of the program?
- What explains the low take-up rate of the program?
- What are the options for making the program more effective?
Comprehensive Safety and Health Program Project
During the 1990s, OSHA began work on a standard that would require all firms above a certain size to implement a comprehensive safety and health program. Three states, including California, have adopted a similar standard. In some states, firms can receive discounts from their workers' compensation premiums if they certify that they have implemented a specified safety program. RAND will:
- Review the information collected by OSHA and assess any evidence regarding the likely effectiveness of this requirement
- Evaluate the impacts of the adoption of the safety program standard in California and any other state that has taken similar steps
- Examine data in Pennsylvania that comes from self-insured firms.
Impact of Safety Standards on Injuries
We are still only beginning to understand the role of different safety standards on the prevention of injuries. There have been some studies that looked at the impact of specific new standards, but only one study that attempted to look at the impact of multiple standards (Mendeloff & Gray, 2005). That study found that citations for person protection equipment were followed by statistically significant drops in several different kinds of injuries—including eye injuries and toxic exposures—while machine guarding citations were not. With workers' compensation data from PA, RAND will replicate and extend this study. Since the PA injury data includes information about the causes of injuries, RAND will be able to link citation effects to particular types of injuries.
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