Exploring the Use of Workers’ Compensation Data for Vulnerable Worker Groups

Details

• Personal Author:
  Beckman J ; Frederick M ; Harrison, Robert ; Jackson R ; Shor G
• Description:
  BACKGROUND: In California, several state agencies are collaborating to combine multiple datasets to enhance our capacity to utilize workers' compensation claims for occupational safety and health prevention activities. Our activities often focus on vulnerable workers, and so we investigated the use of workers' compensation records for addressing hazards to two groups of workers: inmate labor and temporary staffing agency workers. METHODS: Claims with a date of injury between 1/1/2015-12/31/2016 were matched to the Base Wage File, a database populated with all workers covered by unemployment insurance in California. Claims with an identifiable employer were then matched to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages to assign a 4-digit North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) industry code and calculate a rate of injury by industry. Inmate labor claims for all types of jobs were identified using occupation description and employer name. Temporary worker claims were those with a 4-digit NAICS industry code of 5613. RESULTS: Inmate laborers filed 3,157 workers' compensation claims during the study period. Types of injuries included slips, trips, burns, lacerations, poison oak, and extremity injuries that occurred in kitchens, manufacturing shops, scrap recycling, and on fire lines. None of these claims were included in rate calculation because they did not match to a record on the base wage file. We identified 44,716 temporary staffing agency claims. This is the second highest number of claims by industry (3.5% of total claims filed) compared to all other 4-digit NAICS codes. Twenty-four percent were warehouse workers, 8% clerical office workers, 8% retail store workers, and 3% hospital workers. Fifty-one percent (51%) of temporary worker claims occurred within one year of the date of hire, as opposed to 19% for all injuries. CONCLUSIONS: Preventing injuries among vulnerable populations is one of the goals of occupational safety and health. Additional work is needed to identify temporary workers in co-employment situations beyond using industry code. While workers' compensation claims do not have data on race, ethnicity, and wages, they are still useful in identifying injury trends among certain vulnerable worker groups. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Special-vulnerable Populations Correctional Health Injuries Injury Prevention Occupational Health Temporary Workers Workers Compensation
• Publisher:
  Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE)
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067627
• Citation:
  2018 CSTE Annual Conference, June 10-14, 2018, West Palm Beach, Florida. Atlanta, GA: Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), 2018 Jun; :9585
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  Public Health Institute
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20150601
• Source Full Name:
  2018 CSTE Annual Conference, June 10-14, 2018, West Palm Beach, Florida
• End Date:
  20180531
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:689ce41694ea1d08164a3e65fa34565971cee26f394835c9cc38e40bd38b40abbeb03a3469189522735c21b6c8c16f2234e58680dae5818ba0aaf21d1b16c0a8
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/229906/cdc_229906_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 137.85 KB ]