Injury circumstances of occupational fatalities in the U.S. - a comparison of two classification schemes.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Marsh S
• Description:
  Background: With nearly 6,000 workers dying annually due to injury, occupational deaths continue to be a major public health problem. Effective prevention efforts are dependent upon the ability to categorize circumstances and injury causes at a level detailed enough to identify specific problem areas. This study examines utility and agreement between the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), both widely used to categorize occupational fatalities in the U.S. Methods: To add ICD codes to existing CFOI OIICS, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) 2003 and 2004 Vital Statistics Mortality (VSM) data were linked to Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI). A probabilistic program matched up to nine variables to link cases. Results: Of 11,138 CFOI cases, 10,583 (95%) were linked to corresponding VSM cases. Based on OIICS, workplace fatalities primarily involved highway incidents (25%), falls (13%), and homicides (10%); based on ICD, most deaths involved traffic incidents (24%), falls (12%), and homicide (10%). Although leading events (OIICS) and causes (ICD) were similar, distributions of subcategories sometimes differed as other/unknown codes within ICD were generally identified more frequently. For example, highway and traffic collisions w/stationary objects accounted for 25% (OIICS) verses 11% (ICD), respectively, while falls to lower levels accounted for 89% (OIICS) verses 68% (ICD). However, percentages for homicide-related shootings were similar. In many instances, OIICS provides more detail than ICD. For example, 20% of highway incidents involved vehicles moving in opposite directions. Conclusions: Injury characteristics by OIICS and ICD are comparable at broad levels. Although ICD allows comparisons of work and nonwork injury deaths, an advantage of OIICS is that it can provide additional detail critical in successfully prioritizing and focusing prevention efforts in U.S. workplaces.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Age Factors Blood Cardiovascular System Occupational Health Safety Sex Characteristics
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Accident-rates Accident-statistics Accidents Injuries Injury-prevention Mortality-data Mortality-rates Mortality-surveys Occupational-accidents Occupational-exposure Occupational-hazards Occupational-health Risk-analysis Safety-education Safety-measures Safety-monitoring Safety-practices Safety-research Statistical-analysis Surveillance Work-operations Work-performance Work-practices

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• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  A3.2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20035735
• Citation:
  NOIRS 2008-Abstracts of the National Occupational Injury Research Symposium, October 21-23, 2008, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Morgantown, WV: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 2008 Oct; :A3.2
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  NOIRS 2008-Abstracts of the National Occupational Injury Research Symposium, October 21-23, 2008, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4627083091b445719028a10547d72cd155132e3aad2a5475d886b04685f8eb07ce5070caa6604e5985403291812424a4f70749e5441cb6559d1c6ff69e2e04c4
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181525/cdc_181525_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 575.77 KB ]