VETERINARY SAFETY AND HEALTH

Overview

Veterinary medicine and animal care workers provide medical, surgical, preventive health or animal care services for a variety of animal species in many different workplace settings. These workers are exposed to biological, chemical, physical, and psychological hazards depending on their workplace setting, species of animals worked with, and type of tasks performed.

In the United States there are more than 460,000 veterinary medical workers including 169,000 non-farm animal caretakers, 167,000 veterinary technicians, and 73,000 veterinarians [ Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010 data].

The NIOSH National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA), Healthcare and Social Assistance Sector Program is working with industry, labor, other stakeholders, and academics to identify and address the priority workplace safety and health hazards of these workers.