Objective To understand the occupational hazards and the occupational health work conditions of enterprises in a town in southern Jiangsu and to explore suitable control measures for the prevention of occupational disease in local enterprises.

Methods A general survey was conducted on the enterprises operating normally and reporting the existence of toxic and hazardous factors in a town in southern Jiangsu. The basic information of the enterprises, the types of occupational hazards, and the occupational health management situation were collected. SPSS 22.0 software was used to perform statistical analysis on the data.

Results A total of 535 enterprises were investigated, with a total of 20 552 workers, involving 77 kinds of occupational hazards factors in three categories. 7 846(38.18%) workers were exposed to occupational hazards, and the exposure rate was 38.18%(7 846/20 552). In terms of the enterprise scale, industry type, economic type, and risk level, the exposure rates of workers in small and micro enterprises, the textiles and apparel industry, the non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry, the limited liability companies, and the enterprises with severe occupational hazard risk levels were higher(P < 0.01). A total of 503 enterprises were exposed to occupational physical hazards(accounting for 94.02%), and 7 097 workers were exposed to these hazards(accounting for 90.45%).Noise was the most common physical hazard; there were 6 858 noise-exposed workers(accounting for 87.41%) and 489 noise-exposed enterprises(accounting for 91.40%). The declaration rate of occupational hazards, the training rate of responsible persons and occupational health management personnel, the training rate of workers, the measurement rate of occupational hazards factors at workplaces, and the occupational health surveillance rate all decreased with the decrease in enterprise scale(P < 0.05). The completion rates of the above works in micro enterprises were only 1.7%, 1.42%, 5.46%, 14.77%, and 10.51%, respectively.

Conclusions Noise was the most popular occupational hazard that needed to be controlled by enterprises in the town. The town government needs to strengthen the occupational health supervision and management of small and micro enterprises and enforce them to implement the main responsibility for prevention and control of occupational disease.