Surveillance of Construction Worker Injuries: The Utility of Trade-Specific Analysis

Details

• Personal Author:
  Anderson J ; Hunting KL ; Mawudeku A ; Nessel-Stephens L ; Welch LS
• Description:
  Construction is a dangerous industry, with high rates of both fatal and nonfatal injuries. To learn more about the causes of nonfatal construction worker injuries, and to identify injury cases for further work site-based investigations or prevention programs, we established an emergency department-based surveillance program in November 1990. This article describes circumstances of injury, diagnoses, and demographic characteristics of injured construction workers for 2,791 cases identified through mid-August, 1997. Lacerations and strains and sprains were the most frequent diagnoses; cutting and piercing objects were the leading causes of injury among all construction workers, followed by falls and overexertion. Because of the variety of work performed in this industry, more detailed injury descriptions, by trade, are most useful for thinking about injury prevention. To illustrate this, we profile injury patterns among workers from four specific trades: carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and ironworkers. Areas of concern highlighted by the trade-specific analyses include eye injuries among plumbers; falls from ladders among electricians and plumbers; slips, trips, and falls on the same level among ironworkers; electrical exposure among electricians; and, amputations among carpenters. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Construction Industry Musculoskeletal Diseases Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-rates Accident-statistics Accidents Author Keywords: Construction Construction-workers Injuries Injury-prevention Musculoskeletal-system-disorders Occupational Injuries Surveillance Surveillance-programs Traumatic-injuries

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• ISSN:
  1047-322X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  District of Columbia ; OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  458-469
• Volume:
  14
• Issue:
  7
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20025817
• Citation:
  Appl Occup Environ Hyg 1999 Jul; 14(7):458-469
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1999
• Performing Organization:
  Center to Protect Workers' Rights, Washington, DC
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  19900928
• Source Full Name:
  Applied Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• End Date:
  19961231
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:a5368df2f2c43487b4c3210bc843b7ab0df21e0633a512e4679d3ec9fe8c9887d3615e61ca2fd8694447ad14277f9f71a253d011ed313eacffa11b99ce7a1a3d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/197033/cdc_197033_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 395.69 KB ]