Identification of occupations with greater risk of accidents and micro-accidents

Occupational accidents represent an important problem in Occupational Medicine, not fairly investigated till now; as a consequence, data on the matter are lacking. The frequency of accidents is higher in the building, metal and wood industry. As regard to mycro-accidents, information are deeply lacking, and any comparison among different occupational groups is difficult, even if for some workers the risk is high. A very important issue concerning labour injuries is at present time represented by the risk of occupational HIV infection. From this point of view, we can distinguish three groups of workers: 1) health care workers (the group at highest risk); 2) other workers at risk of direct contact with infected blood, such as low-enforcement and correctional-facility officers; 3) workers not at risk of blood contact for occupational causes. Only in the first group some cases of seroconversion (18 until 1988) have been documented. The risk of occupational infection by HIV seems currently low, but a great effort must be devoted to accidents prevention, especially in relation to the great increase of seropositivity prevalence in the population.