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PubMed2006

Changing trends in US injury profiles: revisiting non-fatal occupational injury statistics.

The purpose of this paper is to review the current trends in non-fatal injury profiles of workers in the United States. It is generally accepted that occupational injury and illness rates are affected by many factors, such as the amount and quality of training, employee turnover rates, work experience, extent of mechanization and automation, job-related parameters, and worker gender. In the last decade, not only have the technologies used in the workplace changed significantly, there has been a greater awareness among employers and employees as to the importance of containing work injuries. Additionally, the extent of outsourcing for labor-intensive jobs has increased dramatically owing to cheaper labor costs in places such as China and Mexico. These changes have affected the manufacturing sector of US industry more than any other sector. How these changes have influenced the injury and illness profiles of the American worker is of considerable interest given the increased attention paid to work-workplace design, injury hazard control, and ergonomics in general. In this paper, we compare the injury and illness profiles of US workers separated by nearly a decade. The trends from early 1990s are compared to those from early 2000s. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were used to compile the injury statistics. The results of our comparison show that while the absolute numbers of work-related injuries and illnesses have declined over the last 10 years, the basic trends associated with different factors remain almost unchanged. The reasons for this decline are discussed in this paper.

Back Injuries↗

PubMed2004

[Relationship of occupational injuries with social and economic factors].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationship of occupational injuries with social and economic factors in chemical industry during 2000.01 - 2001.12. METHOD: 1:2 paired case-control study, univariable logistic regression analysis, principal component analysis, and multiple logistic regression analysis were used in this study. RESULTS: Univariable analysis showed that occupational injuries had significant relationship with age, sex, education, employment pattern, technology, workplace, work changing, wage, family income, enterprise scale, enterprise proprietorship, projective device, operation rules, and training rules of work safety. The extracted four principal components (PC(1), PC(2), PC(3) and PC(4), ranked by contribution) gave good expressions to the initial 11 variables. The cumulative proportion of the four principal components reached 77.36%. PC(1) was the indicative factor of occupational injuries, which represented 46.69% information of initial variables. PC(2) was the kinetic factor of occupational injuries. PC(3) was the stable factor of occupational injuries. PC(4) was the sex factor of occupational injuries. The results of multiple conditional logistic regression analysis showed that occupational injuries had statistically significant relationship with PC(1) and PC(2). Among the initial variables, sex, employment pattern, income, scale of enterprise, and property of enterprise were more prominent. CONCLUSION: Occupational injuries are related with multiple social and economic factors, which often interact on each other. The prevention and control of occupational injuries should require a comprehensive approach, including training and education of work safety, improving workers' consciousness of self-protection, and enhancing proprietors' consciousness of work safety.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Frequency of occupational injuries and the health status of workers].

INTRODUCTION: Occupational injuries are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among workers. The aim of this study was to analyze the frequency of occupational injuries and health status of workers. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The examined group consisted of 3,750 workers with health disorders. The control group included 1,800 healthy workers. Both groups were similar in terms of many factors that could contribute to the occurrence of occupational injuries. The injury rates were calculated in both groups. RESULTS: Workers with psychomotor and sensorimotor disorders, neuroses, obstructive sleep apnea, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hearing, vascular and sight impairments have been frequently injured compared to workers with other diseases. DISCUSSION: Due to the belief that accidents and occupational injuries are preventable, it is an imperative to study those factors which are likely to contribute to occurrence of accidents. The contributing factors could be the physical and mental state of workers. CONCLUSION: Occupational injuries are significantly more common in the examined group than in controls.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed1976

Occupational injuries: an exploratory analysis of successful Australian strategies.

An examination of occupational injuries in Australia during the 1960's is made. It is shown that the incidence of occupational injuries decreased by about 12% during the decade and that occupational injuries now approximate 200,000 per annum. Although there are approximately six injuries to men for every one to women,types and sites of occupational injury do not differ between the sexes. Occupational injuries occur most frequently on Mondays, and the incidence decreases sequentially during the week. The age distribution for serious injuries (incurring an absence from work of more than 28 days) differs markedly from the equivalent distributions for minor occupational and all road injuries in that the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth decades of life each contribute about 20% of this total. The customary heavy over-representation of young males is notably absent. "Passive" countermeasures (those that are behaviour-independent) are held to have been differentially more successful than those that are "active" (those that require active cooperation). Examples are given.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed1993

Current methods of estimating severity for occupational injuries and illnesses: data from the 1986 Michigan Comprehensive Compensable Injury and Illness Database.

National and state estimates of the severity of occupational injuries and illnesses (severity = lost work time = missed work days+restricted work days) have come from the annual Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (Survey) produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, we show that the Survey practice of collecting injury information soon after the accident year reduces substantially the accuracy of missed work day estimates, which constitute 85.3% of the Survey lost work time estimate. To develop an independent estimate of missed work days, the research team created the Michigan Comprehensive Compensable Occupational Injury Database (Michigan Database) by linking state files with injury characteristics to files with workers' compensation information for injuries occurring in 1986. The measure of missed work time (days, weeks, or years) is the cumulative duration of compensation from the "date disability commenced," noted on the first payment form, through follow-up to March 1, 1990. Cumulative missed work time has been calculated or estimated for 72,057 injured workers, more than 97% of the 73,609 Michigan workers with compensable occupational injuries in 1986 identified through the close of the study. Our "best" estimate of missed work days, to follow-up, attributable to both fatal and nonfatal compensable occupational injuries and illnesses is 7,518,784, a figure four times that reported for Michigan by the Survey. When insurance industry data on disbursements are also considered, the estimate of missed work days increases to 8,919,079, a figure 4.75 times that reported by the Survey. When insurance data on reserves for future payments are also considered, the estimate of missed work days increases to 16,103,398, a figure 8.58-fold greater than that obtained for Michigan in the Survey. The Michigan data suggest that the national Survey may have failed to identify almost 373 million of 421 million missed work days in the private sector that have resulted, or will result, from 1986 occupational injuries. The present federal/state system for estimating occupational injury severity by measuring lost work days seriously underestimates the magnitude of the problem. The current policy of obtaining incidence and severity data from the same Survey should be reconsidered. We recommend that national estimates of injury severity be obtained from representative states by using state compensation data and that such estimates be used to evaluate current prevention and rehabilitation strategies. The redesigned occupational safety and health Survey (ROSH Survey) should be revised to permit linkage to compensation data.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2004

Effects of data limitations when modeling fatal occupational injury rates.

BACKGROUND: Occupational fatal injury rate studies are often based upon uncertain and variable data. The numerator in rate calculations is often obtained from surveillance systems that can understate the true number of deaths. Worker-years, the denominator in many occupational rate calculations, are frequently estimated from sources that exhibit different amounts of variability. METHODS: Effects of these data limitations on analyses of trends in occupational fatal injuries were studied using computer simulation. Fatality counts were generated assuming an undercount. Employment estimates were produced using two different strategies, reflecting either frequent but variable measurements or infrequent, precise estimates with interpolated estimates for intervening years. Poisson regression models were fit to the generated data. A range of empirically motivated fatality rate and employment parameters were studied. RESULTS: Undercounting fatalities resulted in biased estimation of the intercept in the Poisson regression model. Relative bias in the trend estimate was near zero for most situations, but increased when a change in fatality undercounting over time was present. Biases for both the intercept and trend were larger when small employment populations were present. Denominator options resulted in similar rate and trend estimates, except where the interpolated method did not capture true trends in employment. CONCLUSIONS: Data quality issues such as consistency of conditions throughout the study period and the size of population being studied affect the size of the bias in parameter estimation.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2006

The impact of occupational injury reduction on the U.S. economy.

BACKGROUND: Preventing occupational injuries reduces labor and fringe benefit costs to employers. The related savings filter through the economy, impacting its performance. This study is a first attempt to measure the impact of occupational injury reduction on national economic output, gross domestic product, national income, and employment by using an input-output model of the U.S. economy. METHODS: Occupational injury costs by industry for 1993 were used as a baseline for an input-output model, and the impact of the 38% injury rate reduction between 1993 and 2002 was measured. All computations are in year 2000 dollars. RESULTS: Declining occupational injury between 1993 and 2002 increased employment by an estimated 550,000 jobs. The increase in gross domestic product (GDP) was 25.5 billion US dollars or 9% of the average annual GDP increase from 1993 to 2002. CONCLUSIONS: These estimates represent the benefits of injury rate reduction but ignore associated prevention costs.

Accident Prevention↗

PubMed1990

Occupational injuries to dental personnel.

Occupational injuries to dental hospital personnel over 9 years (1980-1988 inclusive) were studied. Some 300 accidents were reported. Over one-half were sharps injuries. Over one-quarter were falls or collisions. Eye injuries accounted for some 10 per cent of incidents, burns and scalds the remainder. Serious complications were rare, but many of the injuries could have been avoided.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The prevalence of occupational injuries among hand therapists in Australia and New Zealand.

Little research has been dedicated to the prevalence of occupational injury among hand therapists (occupational therapists and physiotherapists). This study investigates the prevalence of occupational injuries and pain in hand therapists in Australia and New Zealand. Another aim of the study was to identify risk factors and prevention strategies. A questionnaire was distributed to 155 therapists in Australia and New Zealand. One hundred and ten questionnaires were returned and analyzed. Results indicated a significant prevalence of primarily hand and upper limb injuries in hand therapists. There were 148 injuries discussed by 73 participants. Of these, 75% were described as work-related injuries. Forty percent of participants described two or more current injuries or pain sites. The most commonly reported occupational injury or pain was around the metacarpophalangeal or carpometacarpal thumb joint. Analysis of data showed no characteristics of participants that particularly put them at risk. There was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of injury in relation to hours of work, handedness, time since graduation, age, or sex. Participants identified possible causes of occupational injury and pain and prevention strategies. Further studies need to assess correlation between anthropometric measures and the prevalence of occupational injury. Studies also need to investigate specific prevention strategies.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Alaska's model program for surveillance and prevention of occupational injury deaths.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) established its Alaska Field Station in Anchorage in 1991 after identifying Alaska as the highest-risk state for traumatic worker fatalities. Since then, the Field Station, working in collaboration with other agencies, organizations, and individuals, has established a program for occupational injury surveillance in Alaska and formed interagency working groups to address the risk factors leading to occupational death and injury in the state. Collaborative efforts have contributed to reducing crash rates and mortality in Alaska's rapidly expanding helicopter logging industry and have played an important supportive role in the substantial progress made in reducing the mortality rate in Alaska's commercial fishing industry (historically Alaska's and America's most dangerous industry). Alaska experienced a 46% overall decline in work-related acute traumatic injury deaths from 1991 to 1998, a 64% decline in commercial fishing deaths, and a very sharp decline in helicopter logging-related deaths. Extending this regional approach to other parts of the country and applying these strategies to the entire spectrum of occupational injury and disease hazards could have a broad effect on reducing occupational injuries.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed1998

Costs of occupational injuries to teenagers, United States.

OBJECTIVES: This paper estimates the incidence and costs of teenage occupational injuries by severity in the United States. METHODS: Existing estimates of occupational injury costs are adapted for the teenage population. Incidence estimates are constructed using data from the US 1993 Annual Survey of Occupational Injury and Illness and the 1993 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries combined with incidence data from the National Health Interview Survey. RESULTS: In 1993, an estimated 371,000 teenagers were injured in the workplace, accounting for 4.2% of all occupational injuries. These injuries cost $5 billion, approximately 3% of the total of injury costs involving teenagers. CONCLUSIONS: Teenagers appear to account for a larger share of the total number of occupational injuries relative to their presence in the employed workforce, but a lower share of the costs of such injuries.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed1984

Occupational injuries in radiology: strategies for cost containment.

Occupational injuries represent a measurable part of the operating costs in the health care environment. Injury rates in hospitals have been documented to be higher than those in industry; one possible cause may be the cost-based reimbursement setting which provides no incentive to reduce occupational injuries. With the advent of prospective payment, the costs associated with occupational injuries must be reduced. This paper will discuss the common hazards in radiology, as well as action that can potentially reduce these costs. Prospective payment has given a new meaning to cost containment, forcing the radiology administrator to seek all possible means to contain costs.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2002

[Scenarios of typical occupational injuries in lumber industry].

OBJECTIVE: To describe the scenarios of typical occupational injuries in lumber industry. METHODS: All occupational injuries reported to a INSS (National Institute of Social Security) center in Lages, SC, Brazil from January 1997 to January 1999 were identified. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out and 254 injury report forms were analyzed. Multivariate analysis was conducted using Factorial Analysis of Correspondence (FAC), Hierarchical Ascendant Classification (HAC) and Partition to identify the scenarios of typical occupational injuries. RESULTS: There were identified five scenarios of occupational injuries: 1) workers' falls (40 reports); 2) overexertion in lifting or pushing objects (5 reports); 3) objects or machine parts falling or being ejected from running machines (76 reports); 4) crushing of soft tissue body parts (56 reports); and 5) body contact with running saw machines (77 reports). CONCLUSIONS: Multivariate analysis allowed describing the most typical injuries related to specific types of accidents, and provided a better understanding of the circumstances for their occurrence.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2006

Associations between temporary employment and occupational injury: what are the mechanisms?

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether observed higher risks of occupational injury among temporary workers are due to exposure to hazardous working conditions and/or to lack of job experience level. METHODS: Data systematically recorded for 2000 and 2001 by the Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs on fatal and non-fatal traumatic occupational injuries were examined by type of employment and type of accident, while adjusting for gender, age, occupation, and length of employment in the company. In the study period there were 1500 fatal and 1 806 532 non-fatal traumatic occupational injuries that occurred at the workplace. Incidence rates and rate ratios (RR) were estimated using Poisson regression models. RESULTS: Temporary workers showed a rate ratio of 2.94 for non-fatal occupational injuries (95% CI 2.40 to 3.61) and 2.54 for fatal occupational injuries (95% CI 1.88 to 3.42). When these associations were adjusted by gender, age, occupation, and especially length of employment, they loose statistic significance: 1.05 (95% CI 0.97 to 1.12) for non-fatal and 1.07 (95% CI 0.91 to 1.26) for fatal. CONCLUSIONS: Lower job experience and knowledge of workplace hazards, measured by length of employment, is a possible mechanism to explain the consistent association between temporary workers and occupational injury. The role of working conditions associated with temporary jobs should be assessed more specifically.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed1997

Epidemiologic study of occupational injuries among foreign and native workers in Taiwan.

This study was designed to compare the risk of occupational injuries in foreign workers compared to native workers in Taiwan. The cohort of foreign workers under study was constructed by records of legally registered workers migrated from foreign countries to Taiwan from July 1, 1991 to December 31, 1993. The native Taiwanese workers for comparison were labor-insured workers working in the same industries as foreign workers in 1992. The number of occupational injuries in the first year of employment were obtained by matching the cohort of foreign workers with the labor insurance payment records by name, birth date and passport number. The 1-year incidence rate of occupational injuries in the first year of employment was calculated and a standardized morbidity ratio (SMR) was used for comparison with adjustment for age distribution and to accommodate the small sample size of foreign workers. The risk to occupational injuries among total (SMR = 0.86) and male (SMR = 0.58) foreign workers was not higher; indeed, it was even lower, than that among native workers in Taiwan. However, the risk to female migrant workers, especially in the construction industry, was significantly higher than that of female Taiwanese workers (SMR = 1.60). Stratified by industry, the incidence was high in the fabricated metal products manufacturing industry and in machinery and equipment manufacturing industry for male foreign workers, while a high incidence for the female foreign workers occurred in construction industry and rubber products manufacturing industry. The risk of occupational injuries was greater for foreign workers who had been in Taiwan for only a short time. Most of the injuries occurred within the first 6 months of employment. Eighty-four out of the 394 occupational injuries among foreign workers resulted in disabilities. None of the accidents was fatal, but most of the disabilities were severe. The most common disabling injuries were cut or crushed fingers. The finding of a similar distribution of occupational injuries among foreign and native workers indicates that control measures are needed to reduce occupational injuries for all foreign and native workers in Taiwan.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2004

[Investigation on the association of safety perception and safety behaviors with occupational injuries in steel-workers].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the association of occupational injuries, with their individual safety perception and safety behaviors in steel workers, so as to provide basis for preventing and controlling occupational injuries. METHODS: Case-control design was used to compare the difference in safety perception and safety behaviors between the injury group and the control, and also to compare the difference in safety behaviors between different safety perception groups. RESULTS: There were remarkable differences in attitude toward the safety degree of the work (chi(2) = 5.444, P < 0.05), and accidents happening (chi(2) = 4.552, P < 0.05) between case group and control group. There were remarkable difference in safety behaviors including manual operations instead of facilities (chi(2) = 10.015, P < 0.01), cleaning up, examining or adjusting machine during work (chi(2) = 7.351, P < 0.05), attention diversion (chi(2) = 10.937, P < 0.01) and unsafe wearing (chi(2) = 7.521, P < 0.05) between case group and control group. There were also significant differences in many safety behaviors between those who thought the job was safe or unsafe. CONCLUSION: There is some association of occupational injuries with safety perception and safety behaviors. To reduce the occurrence of occupational injury, measures should been focused on strengthening safety management and controlling unsafe behaviors.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2004

Underreporting of fatal occupational injuries in Catalonia (Spain).

BACKGROUND: Thoroughness in a given health information system is one of its most important quality indicators. In Spain, in approximately 30% of serious occupational injuries, there is no information on the final outcome. AIM: To assess underreporting of fatal occupational injuries in Catalonia. METHODS: All serious occupational injuries (excluding commuting injuries) reported in Catalonia (Spain) between 1994 and 1998 (n = 7330) were linked with data from the Catalonian Mortality Register, 117 deaths being identified during the year following the injury date. In order to assess whether death could or could not have been related to the prior occupational injury, two experts examined these cases independently. RESULTS: The experts concluded (kappa = 0.98) that 69 (59%) of these deaths were probably related to occupational injuries; the vast majority (n = 65) occurred within 3 months of the injury. This represents an accumulated risk of dying of approximately 1% for the total of serious injuries, not varying with economic activity or job category. However, this risk varied depending on the form of accident, and the site and nature of the injury. CONCLUSIONS: Occupational injury cases, especially serious ones, should be followed up over at least 3 months. These results suggest the importance of carrying out active case-finding and of incorporating the death certificate as one of the documents to be systematically reviewed in order to complete the statistics.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed1997

Design and conduct of occupational injury intervention studies: a review of evaluation strategies.

Occupational injuries continue to exact a great toll on American workers and their employers--the physical and financial costs are enormous. However, in the current political climate, few employers or regulatory agencies will implement injury prevention interventions without specific evidence of their effectiveness. This paper reviews the literature on the design, conduct, and evaluation of occupational injury interventions. Our review suggests that randomized controlled trials are rare and also notes that the quasi-experimental studies in the literature often use the weakest designs. We recommend a hierarchical approach to evaluating occupational injury interventions--beginning with qualitative studies, following up with simple quasi-experimental designs using historical controls, continuing with more elaborate quasi-experimental designs comparing different firms' experience, and, when necessary, implementing randomized controlled trials.

Accidents, Occupational↗