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Expanded analysis of injury mortality among unionized construction workers
Author(s) -
Chen Guang X.,
Johnston Janet J.,
Alterman Toni,
Burnett Carol,
Steenland Kyle,
Stern Frank,
Halperin William
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0274(200004)37:4<364::aid-ajim6>3.0.co;2-e
Subject(s) - medicine , occupational safety and health , occupational injury , environmental health , injury prevention , poison control , medical emergency , pathology
Background To evaluate the utility of expanding the number and precision of injury categories used in previous occupational mortality studies, this study reanalyzed data from four previous studies of unionized construction workers (construction laborers, ironworkers, sheet metal workers, and operating engineers), by expanding the number of injury categories from 6 to 33. Methods Proportionate mortality ratios (PMRs) were computed using the distribution of deaths from the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance System, a mortality surveillance system from 28 states, as a comparison. A blue collar comparison group was also used in additional analyses to adjust for socioeconomic and other factors. Results This reanalysis identified significantly elevated PMRs in at least one of the four worker groups for falls, motor vehicle crashes, machinery incidents, electrocutions, being struck by falling objects, being struck by flying objects, explosions, suffocation, and water transport incidents. Limiting the comparison population to deaths among blue collar workers did not change the results substantially. Conclusions This study demonstrates that increasing the precision of categories of death from injury routinely used in mortality studies will provide improved information to guide prevention. Am. J. Ind. Med. 37:364–373, 2000. Published 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.