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Article: Occupational Disease
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Public Health
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE
The term "occupational disease" refers to those illnesses caused by exposures at the workplace. They should be separated, conceptually, from injuries that may also may occur at workplaces due to a variety of hazards.
In 2001, some 137 million Americans were working, either full-time or part-time, out of a total population of some 280 million. Women make up 46 percent of the workforce.
Occupational diseases may occur in varying time frames, from the instantaneous development of illness following exposure to toxic chemicals to decades between onset of exposure and the development of disease, as occurs with many occupationally related cancers. Many time frames in ...