• Surveillance and control of workplace exposures in New Zealand
• Authors and Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Data Collection Methods for Workplace Exposures
• Exposure Surveillance in New Zealand and Australia
• Surveillance of Exposures Internationally
• Lessons and Conclusions
• Strategy for the Surveillance of Workplace Exposures in New Zealand
• Recommendations
• References

Introduction

The benefits of exposure surveillance | The principles of exposure surveillance | An international perspective

The overriding goal of any comprehensive occupational health and safety (OH&S) system is to prevent work-related injury and illness (see NOHSAC’s first report on the burden of occupational disease and injury in New Zealand⁴). A system that achieves this goal will have a number of components – with exposure surveillance and exposure control system surveillance being two key parts.

In December 2005, NOHSAC released its report on the surveillance of occupational disease and injury in New Zealand¹ (the second in its work programme). The report recommended a major emphasis on surveillance, as it will enable us to find out how many work-related deaths and cases of work-related disease and injury happen in New Zealand each year. The report also noted that surveillance of “exposures and hazards and controls” is as important as, and should ideally be integrated with, the surveillance of disease and injury.

The benefits of exposure surveillance  

Each year in New Zealand:

• 700 to 1,000 people die from work-related disease
• 100 people die from injuries received at work
• 20,000 new cases of work-related disease and injury occur
• 200,000 people are injured at work
• the cost of disease and injury totals $20.9 billion^4,5.

Exposure surveillance and exposure control surveillance can contribute effectively to improvements in OH&S – and to reducing the burden of occupational disease and injury. They can be used to:

• identify trends in occupational health and safety and changes over time
• identify awareness of, and compliance with, legal requirements
• develop accurate assessments of risks in the workplace
• target and support prevention activities and help in developing preventive policies
• evaluate the effect or the efficiency of interventions or OH&S management
• enable preventive action earlier than is usually possible when monitoring outcomes. This is particularly true when there is a long latency period between exposure and the occurrence of the resulting disorder, as is the case with many work-related diseases such as occupational cancer
• achieve more in disease and injury prevention that could be accomplished with disease and injury surveillance alone.

The principles of exposure surveillance  

Exposure surveillance systems take a number of different forms, and sthere are a variety of approaches to collecting the data that support them. However, they use the same principles that apply to the surveillance of health outcomes in that they are “concept driven”, which means they:

• are based on sound theoretical grounds
• use indicators based on the exposure of interest
• use indicators that are primarily science based and valid, in contrast with data-driven systems that are based on what is currently feasible or available
• collect data that are valid, sensitive and specific¹.

For the purposes of this report:

• “exposure surveillance” is defined as the “ongoing and systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of data related to occupational exposures, and the use of this information for prevention and control purposes”
• “exposure control system surveillance” is defined as the “ongoing and systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of data related to occupational exposure control systems, and the use of this information for prevention and control purposes3”.

The report focuses on exposure surveillance – it does not cover exposure control system surveillance in depth. Data on the latter can be collected using a variety of workplace monitoring methods, but are not necessarily captured by interview-based workforce surveys.

An international perspective  

An extensive literature review has revealed that exposure surveillance and exposure control system surveillance do not play a major role in OH&S in either Australia or New Zealand, particularly at government or national levels. The review identified a considerable amount of information on work-related exposures, but very little related to proper exposure surveillance systems at a national level.

This report is based on and summarises the findings of two NOHSAC technical reports:

• International review of surveillance and control of workplace exposures: NOHSAC Technical Report 5
• Review of Australian and New Zealand workplace exposure surveillance systems: NOHSAC Technical Report 6.

Its recommendations have also been influenced by the findings of the Workplace Hazard Exposure Surveillance Workshop, held in Sydney on 26–27 June 2006 and organised by NOHSAC and the Office of the Australian Safety and Compensation Council (OASCC).

The report finds that the surveillance of workplace exposures should ideally be integrated with the surveillance of disease and injury. It also provides solutions for developing a system for surveillance of workplace exposures, and specific recommendations for beginning the surveillance of workplace exposures in New Zealand.

ISBN 0-478-28070-X

This document is available on NOHSAC’s website. It can be freely quoted, copied and circulated with appropriate acknowledgement. The suggested citation is: Pearce N, Dryson E, Feyer A-M, Gander P, Wagstaffe M. Surveillance and control of workplace exposures in New Zealand: Report to the Minister of Labour.

NOHSAC: Wellington, 2006