Biomedical subjects

Hester Lipscomb

Publications and source records attributed to Hester Lipscomb.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Factors contributing to construction injury at Denver International Airport.

BACKGROUND: Detailed information about factors contributing to construction injury is important to support design of safety programs directed at particular risks. METHODS: We linked over 4,000 injury reports, including text describing injury events, with an administrative workers' compensation (WC) database, and, using Haddon's matrix as a framework, classified factors contributing to injury during construction of Denver International Airport (DIA). RESULTS: Patterns of contributing factors varied according to injury mechanism and type of work: environmental factors contributed more than any other factor to slip/trip injuries, and building materials contributed to more than 40% of injuries to workers in carpentry, concrete construction, glass installation, and roofing. Rates at which factors contributed to injury also varied among types of work: environmental factors contributed at relatively high rates to injuries in glass installation, metal/steel installation and iron/steel erection >or= 2 stories, and victim factors contributed at high rates to conduit construction and metal/steel installation injuries. WC payment rates for different factors varied widely, ranging from $0.53/$100 payroll to $3.08/$100. DISCUSSION: This approach allows systematic analysis of classes of injuries, contributing factors, types of work, and other variables to assist in setting prevention priorities.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2005

Methods for using narrative text from injury reports to identify factors contributing to construction injury.

BACKGROUND: Several methods exist for classifying injuries from written text, thereby identifying possible points of intervention. We describe an innovative method for such classification. METHODS: Using Haddon's matrix as a framework, two independent reviewers coded text from over 4,000 injury reports into a qualitative software package to identify factors contributing to injuries sustained during construction of Denver International Airport (DIA). We compared our classification scheme with three others. RESULTS: This process created a coded data set, an expanded version of Haddon's matrix adapted for construction injury, and coding rules for interpreting narrative text. Haddon's matrix provides a flexible theoretical framework for coding information about a spectrum of contributing factors. CONCLUSIONS: Narrative descriptions from injury reports can provide detail on circumstances surrounding injuries and identify factors contributing to injury. Forms guiding investigators to explicitly consider human, organizational, and environmental factors could foster more complete descriptions of factors contributing to construction injury.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2003

Nail gun injuries among construction workers.

Pneumatic nail guns greatly increase worker productivity and are extensively used in wood frame building construction, with especially high use in residential construction. One surveillance report of nail gun injuries in Washington State has been published; however, other literature consists largely of case reports and case series in trauma journals. The major objective of the current study was to investigate the occurrence of nail gun-associated injuries among construction workers and to identify preventable work-related factors associated with these injuries. Nail gun-related injuries occurring among a cohort of 13,347 carpenters in Ohio who worked union hours during the time period January 1, 1994, until September 30, 1997, were identified by matching the cohort with workers' compensation claims made to the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation. We also analyzed workers' compensation claims for North Carolina Home Builders Association members for the period July 1996-November 1999 to identify nail gun-related injuries. Analyses included stratified analyses of claims by nature and body part injured, calculation of nail gun injury rates, and analyses of free text descriptions of injuries. Overall, nail gun injuries were responsible for 3.9 percent of workers' compensation claims with 8.3 percent to 25.5 percent of claims involving paid lost work time. The overall rate of nail gun injuries (cases per 200,000 work hours) was 0.33 in North Carolina and 0.26 in Ohio, reflecting the greater concentration of wood frame construction workers in the North Carolina population studied. Higher rates of injury were observed for carpenters in North Carolina and among residential carpenters in Ohio. The predominant body part injured was the hands/fingers, with 80 to 89 percent of injuries being nail punctures. Analyses of free text information for puncture injuries found approximately 70 percent of injuries to occur during the framing/sheathing stage of construction. Our data suggest that approximately 69 percent of puncture injuries may be due to an inadvertent gun discharge or misfire, preventable in large part by the use of sequential triggers. Worker training and education also are important components of nail gun injury prevention.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Refining the focus of construction injury surveillance.

We conducted two studies of construction injury occurring at Denver International Airport (DL4), whose construction required 31 million work hours. Initially we conducted a retrospective cohort study that allowed estimation of injury and workers' compensation (WC) payment rates for strata such as size of employer and type of work; risk factors were also estimated. The second study examined written injury reports for 4,000 injuries at DIA. We modified Haddon's matrix to classify factors contributing to injury. We identified 108 factors within 4 broad categories: human, object, environment and organization. This approach provided information on rates at which each factor contributed to injury and the WC payment rates for each factor. A study shortcoming was that injury reports varied in completeness and quality. In a third ongoing study, to compensate for the shortcomings of injury reports, particularly to improve consistency and completeness of data, we designed a worker questionnaire completed immediately after injury, which included questions specific to hazards associated with each type of injury. Upon completion, the interviewer (a safety professional) uses the modified Haddon's matrix to note contributors to the injury and explain briefly the reasons for each notation. This requires the interviewer to consider a full set of possible factors and determine whether they contributed to injury. This process elicits richer data and places specific factors within the four higher-level categories. This process confer advantages on both contractors and researchers. Contractors can become immediately aware of contributing factors and ameliorate them quickly. The data can also be used in post hoc analysis of injury etiology. Moreover, the data are sufficiently flexible and complete that they can be coded into schemes describing sequences of events leading to injury, as well as those simply identifying factors contributing to injury. Haddon's matrix is invaluable in such analysis because it leads to a fuller understanding of the origins of the most proximate contributors to injury than would otherwise occur. Particularly for contractors and owners with significant safety infrastructures, this approach may be attractive, because it allows for more complete and quicker correction of specific hazards and, with systematic evaluation, recognition of more general safety concerns present on many construction sites.

Accidental Falls↗