Annual report for Brookhaven National Laboratory 1994 epidemiologic surveillance

Epidemiologic surveillance at DOE facilities consists of regular and systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data on absences due to illness and injury in the work force. Its purpose is to provide an early warning system for health problems occurring among employees at participating sites. Data are collected by coordinators at each site and submitted to the Epidemiologic Surveillance Data Center, located at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, where quality control procedures and analyses are carried out. Rates of absences and rates of diagnoses associated with absences are analyzed by occupation and other relevant variables. They may be compared with the disease experience of different groups within the DOE work force and with populations that do not work for DOE to identify disease patterns or clusters that may be associated with work activities. In this annual report, the 1994 morbidity data for BNL are summarized. These analyses focus on absences of 5 or more consecutive workdays occurring among workers aged 16-80 years. They are arranged in five sets of tables that present: (1) the distribution of the labor force by occupational category and salary status; (2) the absences per person, diagnoses per absence, and diagnosis rates for the whole work force; (3) diagnosis rates by type of disease or injury; (4) diagnosis rates by occupational category; and (5) relative risks for specific types of disease or injury by occupational category