The Role of Age on the Cause, Type, Nature and Cost of Construction Injuries

Details

• Personal Author:
  Butler L ; Rosecrance J ; Schwatka, Natalie V.
• Description:
  As older workers continue to delay retirement, understanding the health and safety needs of an aging workforce will be critical over the next twenty years. The goal of the project was to determine the impact of age on workers in the construction industry as age relates to selected workers' compensation variables. Descriptive and multivariate analysis of over 100,000 workers' compensation construction industry claims for the state of Colorado was conducted to understand the relationship between the claimant age and workers' compensation costs by the causes and natures of injuries and illnesses. Our findings indicate that while older construction workers filed a small percentage of the total workers' compensation claims, their injuries and illnesses were more costly compared to younger workers. The indemnity cost of a claim increased by 3.5% for each year increase in age whereas the medical cost increased by 1%. Workers over the age of 65 were injured most frequently from falls, slips and trips, and workers aged 35 to 64 were injured most frequently from strains. Though repetitive motion causes of injuries were not frequent among all age groups, they resulted in a 6.8% increase in the indemnity cost of a claim for each year increase in age. Strains were the most common nature of injury for workers over the age of 35 but workers over the age of 65 experienced strains and contusions at similar frequencies. This analysis suggests that aging construction workers and younger construction workers do in fact experience significant differences in injuries and costs. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accidental Falls Accidents Aging Construction Industry Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Age Groups Aging Workforce Construction Industry Construction Workers Cost Analyses Costs Injuries Slips, Trips, And Falls STF Workers Compensation
• Publisher:
  CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Colorado ; Maryland ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 8
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-27
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20058178
• Citation:
  Silver Spring, MD: CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training, 2012 Nov; :1-27
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Performing Organization:
  CPWR - The Center for Construction Research and Training, Silver Spring, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20090901
• Source Full Name:
  The role of age on the cause, type, nature and cost of construction injuries
• End Date:
  20240831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0de09a59fb81357a4581a63ef3486c3b2c43977e79a797584fd81cf28ea62f5df1c557a3bf99fd26fa862ecad3e8c227ae267a8080497d19f8d70ce0974d61cf
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/221315/cdc_221315_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 675.86 KB ]