National Occupational Injury Research Symposium (NOIRS)

About NOIRS 2008

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) hosted the fourth National Occupational Injury Research Symposium (NOIRS) on October 21, 22, & 23, 2008 at the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. NOIRS is the only forum for the presentation of occupational injury research findings, data, and methods.

This symposium served numerous objectives aimed at preventing traumatic occupational injury through research and prevention. They included:

• Presenting current research findings.
• Fostering collaboration among researchers from a broad range of disciplines and perspectives, and exploring underutilized disciplines and topic areas.
• Identifying best practices in the area of intervention evaluation.
• Exploring the cost-effectiveness of injury prevention strategies and interventions.
• Showcasing innovative and high technology approaches to research and prevention.
• Continuing to promote the implementation of NORA.

Questions that were addressed included:

• What are the latest traumatic occupational injury research findings?
• What are emerging problem areas in workplace trauma?
• How is prevention through design being applied to occupational injury research and prevention?
• What activities are being done to implement research to practice in the area of traumatic occupational injury?
• What are the best practice intervention and prevention strategies and which strategies do not work? In what specific workplaces and under what circumstances?
• What are the economic costs of traumatic occupational injuries and how cost-effective are the prevention strategies?
• What are current and emerging research areas and disciplines?
• What are the trends in traumatic occupational injury and fatality incidence? In research tools, techniques, and methods? In prevention?
• What specific workplace risks are faced by adolescents, older adults, minority workers, non-English-speaking workers, low-literacy workers, and other special populations?
• How can researchers and practitioners in different sectors and disciplines better collaborate and coordinate their activities to reduce traumatic occupational injuries?
• What methods are available to assess, quantify, and compare traumatic occupational injury risks?.