A model system for occupational disease surveillance activities applying Centers for Disease Control guidelines to poison control centers.

Each year, poison control centers (PCCs) receive more than 25,000 calls related to workplace exposures to hazardous substances. Recent studies indicate that each caller may be a sentinel contact representing other exposed or ill workers. Although PCCs traditionally focus their follow-up efforts on the treatment of the index case alone, with minimal attention to the public health implications of other exposed or ill workers, PCCs could serve as a national surveillance system for occupational illnesses, a system with both passive and active attributes.