Improving Agricultural Injury Surveillance: Comparing Injuries Captured by Iowa's Workers' Compensation and Trauma Registry Data

Details

• Journal Article:
  Injury Prevention
• Personal Author:
  Ramirez, Marizen R. ; Boonstra, D. Erik ; Moskowitz, Adam F. ; Gerr, Fred ; Cavanaugh, Joseph E. ; Casteel, Carri
• Description:
  Background: Without a comprehensive national surveillance system in the USA, the agricultural sector faces numerous obstacles to accurate and complete injury reporting and surveillance. Secondary sources are increasingly being used to conduct surveillance but have not been thoroughly evaluated for their overlap and ability to capture various types of agricultural injuries. Methods: Using two state-level systems which likely capture severe injuries, the (i) Iowa Trauma Registry (ITR) and (ii) Workers' Compensation (WC) records, we compared worker and injury characteristics found in these two data sources over a ten-year period (2005-2014) and developed a predictive model to determine which injuries are most likely captured in one data source vs the other. Results: A total of 2398 unique injuries from ITR and 3419 unique injuries from WC were found. There was very little overlap between the two sources. In general, injuries among older agricultural workers (65+) had a higher probability of capture by the ITR, while injuries among younger agricultural workers were more likely captured by WC. Young agricultural workers injured in motor vehicle traffic incidents were more likely captured by WC, but after age 25, these injuries were more likely captured by the ITR. In contrast, more machinery injuries were captured by the ITR than WC across age. Conclusions: Neither of these secondary systems fully captured all injuries. Hence, comprehensive surveillance would require multiple data sources. However, future studies involving targeted research questions could select one data source, especially when surveillance resources are limited.
• Subjects:
  Agriculture Occupational Health Occupational Injuries Safety Workers' Compensation
• Keywords:
  Surveillance; Agriculture; Agricultural industry; Traumatic injuries; Workers Compensation; Databases; Young workers; Age groups; Motor vehicles; Agricultural machinery; Injury prevention
• Source:
  Inj Prev 2025 Jun; :[Epub ahead of print]
• ISSN:
  1353-8047
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Iowa ; California ; Minnesota ; Kansas City Region [OSHA] ; San Francisco Region [OSHA] ; Chicago Region [OSHA]
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  8 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20071423
• Email:
  marizenr@hs.uci.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2025
• NORA Priority Area:
  Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
• Performing Organization:
  University of Iowa, Iowa City
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20010930
• End Date:
  20270929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:a5b0d5468316ce6cfb441e16605a2a796c98dca65c2a5a42e41ec99e40f3af705d4d101a4212da6041aafc6713d91adf1b24378809132769072200628a6684b5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/259022/cdc_259022_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 753.27 KB ]