i68 Injury Prevention 2001;7(Suppl I):i68–72
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CONCLUSION
Injury prevention and occupational safety: four
questions, three answers
B Pless
Author’s note: This paper is written in the first per- And the last is: Does having good research
son for two reasons. First, I teach writers to use the published in good journals really make a diVer-
“active voice” whenever possible and must practise ence? If not, what needs to be done to change
what I preach. Second, and more germane, this is a this?
highly personal account of my impressions of an
area in injury prevention that I make no pretence I
know well. It is an account of a voyage of discovery (1) Is occupational safety diVerent from
and cannot be dignified by the trappings of an other areas of injury prevention?
objective assessment that typical scientific writing The first is the tough, almost existential
conveys. question about whether there is a fundamental
When I was invited to give this wrap-up talk, diVerence between occupational injuries, or
I was flattered but wondered what someone occupational safety, and all other categories of
whose main interest is not occupational injury prevention, and if there is, what is the
injuries might have to say that could be of nature of that diVerence.
interest to the audience. In light of this uncer- On the one hand, the simple answer is that
tainty, I decided to base this presentation there is no diVerence, or should not be, because
largely on my experiences as editor of this jour- all injuries are health problems. An injury is an
nal in the field. injury whether it occurs at work or during non-
I was invited when our family was preparing work activities. It matters little whether it
to celebrate both Passover and Easter. At the comes from being hit by a car or a tractor, or
Passover meal it is customary for the youngest whether it comes from falling from a ladder at
to ask four questions, the theme of which is home or at work. Moreover all are important
rhetorical along the lines of “Why is this night because of their numbers, their potential
diVerent from all others in the year?” Then the seriousness, their preventability, and their cost.
answers are given each beginning with “On all On the other hand, it is equally reasonable to
other nights we do so such and such, but on argue that occupational safety diVers in several
this night we do thus and such”. Together the important respects. To begin with, I assume the
questions and answers summarise the Passover nature of the data available is, or should be,
ritual. better than what is customarily available for
It struck me that this was the sort of many other types of injuries for at least three
question I asked myself after receiving the reasons. First, because these data are obtained
invitation. I wondered in what way occupa- systematically; second, because the population
tional injuries diVer from most other injuries at-risk is usually well defined, and third,
such that I knew so little about them. I also because it should be more often possible to
wondered what I could say about publishing estimate exposures than in many other areas of
material pertaining to these injuries that might injury epidemiology. (These statements apply
be diVerent from publishing studies about seat to data collected at or by the workplace;
belt use, for example. Consequently, I decided national data rarely identify work injuries, and
that I would frame this presentation around one estimate from the National Health Inter-
four questions, albeit not quite of biblical pro- view Survey is that 20% of “at work” injuries
portions. To these I have only three answers, are not captured by traditional workplace
hence the title. based systems; G Smith, personal communica-
The first question is: Is there any fundamen- tion.)
tal diVerence between occupational injuries Secondly, I also assume, perhaps naively,
Montreal Children’s and safety and all others, and if so, what is it? that research in occupational safety is often
Hospital, Montreal The second is where should occupational diVerent because it involves a more direct con-
safety research be published? Or, put diVer- nection between the researcher and the spon-
Correspondence to: sor. Put another way, there may more often be
Barry Pless, Editor, Injury
ently, how should anyone decide on which
Prevention, Montreal journal, or type of journal, should have the a direct financial payoV from preventive
Children’s Hospital, C538, privilege of publishing their work? Where research to the employer. In contrast, if
2300 Tupper Street, might it have the greatest eVect? highway safety improves, it is not transport that
Montreal, QC H3H 1P3,
Canada The third is what enhances getting research benefits financially but the health care sector
barry.pless@mcgill.ca published? (through decreased medical care expenses). It
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, Injury prevention and occupational safety i69
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Table 1 Journals in which occupational safety papers have been published
(1) Basic (n=12) (2) General (n=18) (3) Mainstream (n=41) (4) Specialized (n=16) (5) Other (n=50)
J Appl Behav Anal (4) J Safety Res (5) Am J Ind Med (8) Clinical Surgery (9) Arch Env Cont Tox (7)
Human Factors (2) Accid Anal Prev (2) J Occup Environ Med (9) Infect Control (2) Rev Arch Cont Tox (2)
J Appl Psychol (2) Am J Health Prom (2) Appl Occup Env Hyg (4) J Secur Adm (1) J Agric Safety Hlth (6)
In Rev Appl Psychol (1) Health Educ Res (2) Am Ind Hyg Assoc (3) Can J Criminol (1) J Agromed (3)
Personnel Psychol (1) JAMA (2) Ergonomics (3) Security J (1) Sight Saving Rev (2)
Risk Analysis (1) J Org Behav Man (2) Appl Ergonomics (3) Occup Med Rev (1) J Agric Food Chem (1)
Am J Comm Psychol (1) Am J Public Health (1) Appl Ind Hyg (2) Am J Ind Med (1) Arctic Med Res (1)
Aust Health Rev (1) Occup Med (2) J Hand Surg Ann (1)
Health Educ Quart (1) J Soc Occup Med (2) Work (1)
Occup Health (1) Proceedings/book chapters (17)
Br J Ind Med (1) Theses/unpublished (9)
Int Arch Occup Env (1)
J Occup Med (1)
Occup Hazards (1)
is probably not an exaggeration to suggest that should not be done with any great expectations
there are no other fields of injury prevention that it will be accepted, it is reasonable to
where the benefits of a safety measure accrue assume such a journal will provide expert
directly to the sponsor of the research. (In say- reviews. These, in turn, should help improve
ing this I am assuming that the research is sup- your paper so that it has a better chance of suc-
ported by the employer or by an insurance cess when you send it to a more realistic target,
company.) In spite of this compelling argu- some notches below in the pecking order.
ment, it appears there is little corporate There is also a loftier principal that ideally
sponsored workplace research in the United should be considered when choosing a journal:
States, Liberty Mutual being a notable excep- deciding where it will do the most good. It is
tion. Nevertheless, the point remains: experi- always wise to at least consider who the target
ence in another “closed system”—the Indian audience is when choosing a journal and it is
Health Service—shows how much an invest- not too much to expect that the target audience
ment in prevention research can result in sub- includes those best able to make good use of
stantial savings, both monetary and personal. your findings. (This principle is based on the
This is also the experience of Workmen’s perhaps misguided assumption that people
Compensation systems who fund research in actually read what you write and are eager to
some Canadian provinces. respond to what you recommend.) If it is true,
Third, in any case, regulations or laws may however, that target audiences are important,
make it easier to enforce workplace rules than it an argument can be made that the fewer jour-
would be if the same rules were aimed at the nals there are the more likely it is that the tar-
outside community. Against this are pressures get will be reached. It is also possible to make
in the workplace and, for many, forces that are the opposite argument—that more niche, or
beyond one’s control that serve to increase risk. specialty journals, are needed.
Finally, another interesting diVerence is that The third option is to choose the journal
in general it should be much easier to evaluate where you realistically have the best chance of
preventive interventions because the workplace having it accepted with the least hassle—
provides more of a closed laboratory. In such a probably the most popular of the options.
setting, policies and practices as well as control
In light of these points, I was prompted to try
technology can be tested under better condi-
to discover where occupational safety papers
tions.
are actually published. To answer this I
examined each paper in a supplement on occu-
(2) Where should occupational safety pational safety published by the American Jour-
research be published? nal of Preventive Medicine last year1 and listed
The second question is how anyone working in every journal cited in the references. I then cat-
this field decides on a journal in which they egorised them as follows: (1) basic science
would like to see their work published. Stated journals, mostly psychology; (2) general jour-
more generally the question is how does one nals, usually medical or public health, but not
choose which journal is most appropriate for specific to occupational safety; (3) mainstream
any particular paper? occupational health and safety journals; (4)
This seemingly simple question has a specialized journals (including proceedings,
complex answer. It is safe to begin with the self book chapters, doctoral dissertations, or other
evident assumption that authors would always unpublished formats); and (5) other, which
prefer to publish in the “best”, that is, the most includes some specialized journals as well as
prestigious, peer reviewed journal, with a high proceedings and theses (see table 1).
impact factor rather than in some inferior The main conclusion prompted by this exer-
beast. Setting aside any doubts I may have cise is that in occupational safety (as is no
about the value and validity of impact factors, doubt true of other injury prevention fields) no
clearly, by this measure or some other, certain journal dominates; there is no focus. A grand
journals are more prestigious than others. So total of 46 diVerent journals (perhaps not all of
why not aim high? In fact, I often urge students which are peer reviewed) cannot be good for
and colleagues to put a first class journal at the the field because no one can keep up with such
top of their list of preferences. Although a widely scattered body of literature. But the
submitting any paper to a world class journal solution is not to suggest that all these journals
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