Working together for safety: a state team approach to preventing occupational injuries in young people

"Most young people work at some time during high school. Although working can be a positive experience, it also has risks. The Institute of Medicine's Committee on the Health and Safety Implications of Child Labor reports that 50 percent of youths between ages 15 and 17 work at some time during the course of a year and that 80 percent of students work at least some time during high school. Every year, at least 100,000 of these young people seek treatment in an emergency room for a work-related injury. Every year, at least 70 young people are killed on the job. Young people are injured in the workplace at twice the rate of adult workers. Yet no single agency has the ultimate responsibility for protecting young people from workplace hazards. What is needed is an approach that brings coherence and coordination to this mission. A State team for young worker safety is a coalition of agencies and organizations whose goal is to protect the safety and health of young people in the workplace. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a team as "a group organized to work together." This definition goes to the heart of the State team approach. A State team is not a committee, task force, or blue ribbon panel. State teams do not exist to make recommendations, issue reports, share information, or discuss issues - although they can do all of these. State teams exist to work on concrete projects that protect young people from injuries in the workplace. Over the past 5 years, several of the States in the Northeastern part of the United States have successfully used the State team approach to improve their capacity to protect young workers." - NIOSHTIC-2prepared by Education Development Center, Inc., prepared for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health."CDC workplace Safety and Health."--Cover."May 2005"--P. ii.Also available via the World Wide Web on PDF