Key points
- The Traumatic Injury Prevention Program (TIP) aims to reduce and prevent work-related injury and death, across all industries, due to acute trauma or violence.
- The Program develops practical solutions to address issues that cause traumatic injuries and deaths among workers including falls, motor vehicle crashes, and workplace violence.
Overview
To Learn More
The Traumatic Injury Prevention (TIP) Program focuses on identifying and evaluating ways to reduce traumatic injuries among disproportionately affected occupations and workers. This includes high risk jobs, racial and ethnic minorities, young and older workers, and those in non-standard work arrangements, such as temporary workers. The program also addresses emerging issues such as robotics and drug overdoses in the workplace.
Program priorities
The TIP program has selected research priorities on the basis of burden, need, and impact and collaborated with other NIOSH research programs to write the research goals in the NIOSH Strategic Plan for FYs 2019-2026. Priority areas include (but are not limited to):
- Preventing fatal and nonfatal injuries among high risk workers in the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing sector including falls, machine-related incidents, and falls overboard fishing vessels
- Preventing fatal and non-fatal injuries among Construction workers, including falls from elevation and on the same level, struck-by incidents, injuries related to emerging technology such as robotics and exoskeletons, and injuries and risk factors for opioid, illicit drugs and substance misuse
- Preventing violence and injury caused by patients among Healthcare and Social Assistance workers
- Preventing injuries related to human-machine interaction among Manufacturing workers
- Preventing injuries among Mining workers such as striking incidents in confined spaces, injuries from high wall failures, fire and explosion associated injuries, the effect of heat strain due to excessive heat exposure, and slips, trips, and falls
- Preventing motor vehicle crashes among Oil and Gas Extraction workers
- Preventing injuries among Public Safety workers such as motor vehicle collisions, workplace violence including assault, and unintentional occupational exposure to illicit drugs
- Reducing falls on the same level and to a lower level among Services workers
- Reducing transportation and machine-related incidents and related injuries among Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities workers
- Preventing injuries due to falls and motor vehicle crashes among workers in the Wholesale and Retail Trades
What we've accomplished
In 2022-2023, the Program:
- Published an article on potential risk factors for suicide among first responders, including firefighters and law enforcement officers. Compared to the general population, suicide risk factors for first responders more frequently involved job, intimate partner, and physical health problems.
- Published two articles that used media scraping approaches that identified and described characteristics of workplace violence related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Published findings from a laboratory-based evaluation of a curve speed warning system (CSWS) to prevent fire truck rollover crashes. The results indicated that the CSWS was effective in issuing preemptive warnings when the drivers were approaching curves with unsafe speed during emergency response and identified potential improvements to the CSWS.
- Published a literature review to better understand what is known about occupational safety and health issues affecting American Indian and Alaska Native workers.
- Developed an informational video that highlights the challenges and tactics for fighting fire in row houses. As of June 2023, this video had 2.2 thousand views.
What's ahead
In the future, the Program aims to:
- Contribute to a special issue of the Journal of Safety Research highlighting research presented at the National Occupational Injury Research Symposium 2022.
- Publish a literature review that applies a health equity lens to work-related motor vehicle safety.
- Disseminate findings from collaborative research with the U.S. Air Force, including three published injury prevention manuscripts related to safety climate; an evaluation of fall prevention countermeasures; and finger, hand, and wrist injuries.
- Publish an online publication, Workplace Solutions, that describes injuries and deaths among sanitation workers and outlines prevention recommendations.
Resources
More information on specific workplace safety and health topics and useful resources can be found on the Traumatic Injury Prevention Directory Page.
NORA Council
The TIP Program helps lead the NORA Traumatic Injury Prevention Cross-Sector Council, which brings together individuals and organizations to share information, form partnerships, and promote adoption and dissemination of solutions that work. The council seeks to facilitate the most important research, understand the most effective intervention strategies, and learn how to implement those strategies to achieve sustained improvements in workplace practice. The NORA TIP Research Agenda identifies the knowledge and actions most urgently needed to characterize and prevent occupational injuries and deaths.