Occupational Health and the Service Member

xvii, [1], 632, xix-xxxviii pages. No dust jacket present. Corners a bit 'dinged'. Color Frontispiece. Illustrations (some in color). References. Abbreviations and Acronyms. Index. This is one of the Textbooks of Military Medicine series. Colonel Mallon, MD, MPH, is a retired Army physician who has worked as a contractor for Federal Occupational Health and the Department of Veteran's Affairs. His former positions include occupational medicine consultant to the Army Surgeon General, Director of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency Program at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and director of the Clinical Preventive Medicine Directorate of the Army Public Health Center. He is a fellow of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and an adjunct professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The Textbook of Military Medicine (TMM) is a series of volumes on military medicine published since 1989 by the Borden Institute, of the Office of The Surgeon General, of the United States Department of the Army. It constitutes a comprehensive, multi-volume treatise on the art and science of military medicine, as practiced by the United States armed forces. The books integrate lessons learned in past wars with current principles and practices of military medical doctrine. The spectrum of topics is broad, ranging from wound ballistics to medical ethics, and from considerations of harsh environments to applied biomedicine. The TMM series is intended to be tri-service in scope, although the majority of contributors are affiliated with the U.S. Army. Occupational safety and health (OSH) or occupational health and safety (OHS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at work (i.e., while performing duties required by one's occupation). OSH is related to the fields of occupational medicine and occupational hygiene and aligns with workplace health promotion initiatives. OSH also protects all the general public who may be affected by the occupational environment. According to the official estimates of the United Nations, the WHO/ILO Joint Estimate of the Work-related Burden of Disease and Injury, almost 2 million people die each year due to exposure to occupational risk factors. Globally, more than 2.78 million people die annually as a result of workplace-related accidents or diseases, corresponding to one death every fifteen seconds. There are an additional 374 million non-fatal work-related injuries annually. It is estimated that the economic burden of occupational-related injury and death is nearly four per cent of the global gross domestic product each year. The human cost of this adversity is enormous. In common-law jurisdictions, employers have the common law duty (also called duty of care) to take reasonable care of the safety of their employees. Statute law may, in addition, impose other general duties, introduce specific duties, and create government bodies with powers to regulate occupational safety issues. Details of this vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Prevention of workplace incidents and occupational diseases is addressed through the implementation of occupational safety and health programs at an organization's level.…