State-based occupational health surveillance programs have formed an organization under the umbrella of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), called the Occupational Health Surveillance Workgroup. NIOSH has provided funds to CSTE to support the activities of the Workgroup.

A major project undertaken by the Workgroup has been the development of 19 “Occupational Health Indicators” (OHIs) that can be used to measure the baseline health of working populations and changes that take place over time. These definitions and a standardized methodology for their calculation were compiled in a document, Occupational Health Indicators: A Guide for Tracking Work-Related Health Conditions and Their Determinants. Thirteen states’ data for the 19 OHIs and comparison national data have been published in Putting Data to Work: Occupational Health Indicators from Thirteen Pilot States for 2000, and, for OHI data through 2003, on the Web. Both documents and Web data are available at http://www.cste.org/occupationalhealth.asp.