About 70 teens die from work-related injuries in the United States each year and nearly 77,000 get hurt badly enough to warrant an emergency room visit. Ensuring that these young workers are safe on the job is a critical part of the surveillance, research and outreach activities that NIOSH, the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, conducts and supports each year.

NIOSH conducts and supports data collection and analyses to better understand the circumstances of young worker injuries and illnesses.

In 1997, with funding from Congress, NIOSH launched an initiative to reduce childhood agricultural injuries and illnesses by advancing scientific knowledge on causes and prevention. NIOSH collects and disseminates new data on childhood agricultural injuries, funds research projects to advance knowledge about causes and prevention, and funds the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Safety and Health to translate scientific findings into easy-to-read language and facilitate prevention efforts across the country.

In collaboration with NIOSH, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released new data on agricultural-related injuries among children on minority-operated farms.

In response to a recommendation in the National Research Council/Institute of Medicine report “Protecting Youth at Work,” NIOSH conducts and supports investigations of youth injury deaths through the Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) program. These investigations are used to develop recommendations for preventing future similar deaths.

Last year, NIOSH released a publication summarizing young worker safety and health data and providing prevention recommendations for employers, young workers, parents and educators. This NIOSH Alert "Preventing Deaths, Injuries, and Illnesses of Young Workers" can be accessed at www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2003-128/2003-128.htm.

In partnership with the public and private sectors, NIOSH recently published the CD-ROM "NIOSH Safety Checklist Program for Schools and Other Safety Databases". This Checklist provides information to assist schools in maintaining safe classrooms, shops, and labs for teachers and students. The Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales of Spain has requested permission to translate the Checklist Program into Spanish for use in their high schools and technical schools. The Checklist can be accessed at www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2004-101/.

In 2003, NIOSH became one of 26 federal agencies participating in an interagency workgroup established by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to optimize the impact of federal resources in addressing young worker injuries and illnesses. One example of this work was the development of an occupational safety and health training curriculum targeted to the needs of teens and young adults. The curriculum was adopted by the Job Corps to help train youth participating in their programs. The curriculum currently contains modules on understanding the risk of teen work injuries, identifying potential hazards in the workplace, identifying ways to make jobs safer, dealing with emergencies at work, understanding one’s legal rights as a teen worker, and suggested strategies for communicating with a supervisor and taking action to prevent work-related injury or illness. NIOSH is continuing to refine the curriculum through additional evaluations in traditional vocational high schools.

For an overview of NIOSH efforts to protect young workers, please visit the NIOSH Young Worker Safety and Health Topic Page at www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/youth/.