Evaluation of the Louisiana Early Event Detection System for Timely Capture of Work-Related Amputations

Details

• Personal Author:
  Dauterive R ; Reilly A ; Singletary G
• Description:
  On January 1, 2015, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began enforcing its updated Recordkeeping Rule regarding severe injury reporting, which requires employers to report all work-related inpatient hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of an eye within 24 hours of occurrence. Previously, employers were only required to report inpatient hospitalizations of three or more employees for a single event. The rule was updated to improve access to information about workplace safety and health and allow OSHA to utilize these types of injuries as sentinel events to trigger investigations into specific workplaces. Investigations frequently uncover other safety issues at the work site which, when corrected, prevent further worker injury. In 2015, United States employers reported 2,723 work-related amputations to OSHA; Louisiana employers reported 55 of these. Because accurate capture of cases relies on employer reporting, there are concerns about under-reporting. The Bureau of Labor Statistics collects work-related injury and illness data from 230,000 private industry, state, and local government establishments each year for the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII). Though not administered by OSHA, the SOII uses OSHA's recordkeeping guidelines to make data collection convenient. In addition, the SOII encompasses industries not regulated by OSHA, such as railroad and mining. In 2015, SOII captured 220 work-related amputations with days away from work in Louisiana, 3.8 times the number of work-related amputations reported by employers to OSHA that year. The large difference in the number of cases reported to OSHA versus the SOII adds to concerns that employers are under-reporting severe work-related injuries to OSHA. While the difference may be at least partially be explained by the difference in the scope of employers included in the SOII versus those regulated by OSHA, a likely contributing factor is employer knowledge that SOII data is for statistical purposes only and cannot be used for any regulatory purpose. There are concerns that, for a variety of reasons, the SOII also undercounts injuries and illnesses; therefore, the actual number of work-related amputations that occurred in Louisiana in 2015 may be higher than 220. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Occupational Health Public Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Lost Work Days Monitoring Systems Occupational Safety Public Health Surveillance Traumatic Injuries
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Newsletter
• Place as Subject:
  Louisiana ; OSHA Region 6
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  4-5
• Volume:
  29
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20066203
• Citation:
  LA Morbid Rep 2018 May-Jun; 29(3):4-5
• Email:
  anna.reilly@la.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  Louisiana State Office of Public Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20150720
• Source Full Name:
  Louisiana Morbidity Report
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6ef03c17540b33f314439982a860071593d75342a79c1992b0922187b75bd264f4c8a573c7c8fe0f40f740a9e87c947cc25dc4438747d3d8d6692305eb2000a8
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/212700/cdc_212700_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 644.20 KB ]