Job-Related Illness Called ‘America’s Invisible Killer’ : Health: Institute estimates 5% to 10% of cancer deaths are traceable to the job. New disorders have emerged as tasks have changed, its report says.

Americans are more likely to die from work-related disease and injury than from any other preventable cause, including motor vehicle accidents, according to a new study that for the first time tries to quantify the extent of work-induced illness in the United States.

The study, which analyzed national mortality data, concluded that more than 71,000 Americans died in 1987 of diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular and neurological problems brought on by the conditions of their work.

“Occupational disease is the most neglected public health problem in the United States today,” the Chicago-based National Safe Workplace Institute contended in a 90-page report released Thursday. “To date, the response has been disgracefully weak.”

The institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, found that new disorders have emerged in recent years as the workplace has changed. Those disorders “have been largely ignored because of the seemingly benign environment under which they are incurred.”

Those conditions and others have proliferated at a time when federal spending on workplace health has foundered, the group said. The report called for increased attention to workplace health by policy-makers, regulators, employers and physicians.

“The U.S. has engaged in benign neglect toward occupational disease, America’s invisible killer,” the report charged. “Without a firm response by the health community, this benign neglect wreaks havoc on the lives of workers, their families and communities . . . .”

“The most significant point is that the country faces a large burden of occupational disease,” said Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of environmental and occupational health at Emory University in Atlanta and a consultant on the study. “We need to recognize it better and do more about it.”

Officials at the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Thursday refused to comment on the report. They said they had not had sufficient time to study it.

The institute based its findings on federal data on deaths from different diseases in the United States each year. Relying on scientific literature, it then estimated the proportion of deaths in each category that could be attributed to work.

For example, the institute estimated that 5% to 10% of cancer deaths and 3% to 5% of neurological disease deaths are traceable to working conditions. Between 1% and 3% of cardiovascular disease deaths are related to work, the researchers estimated.

Using those calculations, the institute found that between 47,377 and 95,479 Americans died of occupational diseases in 1987, the latest year for which there are statistics. The midpoint in that range, and the institute’s final estimate, was 71,428.

Among other findings, the Chicago-based group reported:

The shift from heavy industry to service employment has brought with it a “new generation” of workplace illnesses, including conditions caused by stress, indoor air pollution, poor work-station design and new chemical compounds of which little is known.

At the same time, federal spending on workplace health has not kept pace during the 1980s with inflation and increases in spending on other programs. The group cited statistics that suggest that workplace health became a diminishing federal priority.

The explanations of workplace hazards that employers are required to keep on file are “often needlessly technical, overly legal and just plain confusing.”