Colorado Department of Public Health

In proposing that each public safety organization implement a fitness program for its personnel, the author provides a variety of options for ensuring that the standards and test regimens adopted by a department are suitable, both in terms of individual members and the roles that they fulfill. LeCuyer's unique, thought-provoking analysis of test protocols will help organizations avoid many of the pitfalls associated with modern labor laws and declaring anyone, whether rehabilitated member or new recruit, fit for duty. Using his outlines for levels of participation and exercise prescription, a qualified fitness coordinator will be able to institute a viable program in any department, no matter how large or small the available budget. Whether fire or police, whether rural or metropolitan, public safety organizations worldwide will benefit from paying greater attention to the health and fitness of their members. This book is a prime tool for all concerned.

As the debate over health care reform continues, costs have become a critical measure in the many plans and proposals to come before us. Knowing costs is important because it allows comparisons across such disparate health conditions as AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, and cancer. This book presents the results of a major study estimating the large and largely overlooked costs of occupational injury and illness--costs as large as those for cancer and over four times the costs of AIDS.The incidence and mortality of occupational injury and illness were assessed by reviewing data from national surveys and applied an attributable-risk-proportion method. Costs were assessed using the human capital method that decomposes costs into direct categories such as medical costs and insurance administration expenses, as well as indirect categories such as lost earnings and lost fringe benefits. The total is estimated to be $155 billion and is likely to be low as it does not include costs associated with pain and suffering or of home care provided by family members.Invaluable as an aid in the analysis of policy issues, Costs of Occupational Injury and Illness will serve as a resource and reference for economists, policy analysts, public health researchers, insurance administrators, labor unions and labor lawyers, benefits managers, and environmental scientists, among others.J. Paul Leigh is Professor in the School of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of California, Davis. Stephen Markowitz, M.D., is Professor in the Department of Community Health and Social Medicine, City University of New York Medical School. Marianne Fahs is Director of the Health Policy Research Center, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University. Philip Landrigan, M.D., is Wise Professor and Chair of the Department of Community Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York.