Abstract
An estimated 3.3 million persons aged greater than or equal to 16 years were treated for occupational injuries in EDs in the United States during 1996, yielding an average crude annual rate of 2.8 injuries per 100 FTEs (95% CI=2.2-3.3). Of those persons injured, 23.2% (765,762) were workers aged 16-24 years, 70.8% (2,337,412) were aged 25-54 years, and 6.0% (198,477) were aged greater than or equal to 55 years. The rates were 3.3 per 100 FTEs for men (69% of total injuries) and 2.1 per 100 FTEs for women (31% of total injuries) (Table-1). Hour-based injury rates were higher than employee-based rates for women and for the youngest and oldest workers. The overall male:female rate ratio (based on the FTE employment estimates) was 1.6:1, but this ratio decreased with increasing age. The ratio was 1.5:1 for workers aged 16-17 years and 2.0 for workers aged 18 -19 and 20-24 years, decreasing to 0.9:1 for workers aged 65-74 years and -19 years had the highest injury rates for both men and women (Table-1). Excluding workers aged 16-17 years, injury rates decreased with increasing age. Men aged less than 25 years had a significantly higher injury rate (6.7 per 100 FTEs; 95% CI=4.8-8.6) than all men (3.3 per 100 FTEs; 95% CI=2.6-4.0) and men aged greater than or equal to 45 years had a significantly lower rate (1.7 per 100 FTEs; 95% CI=1.4-2.1). Women aged less than 20 years had a significantly higher rate (4.2 per 100 FTEs; 95% CI=3.1-5.3) than all women (2.1 per 100 FTEs; 95% CI=1.7-2.5), and those aged 65-74 years had a significantly lower rate (1.2 per 100 FTEs; 95% CI=0.8-1.7). In 1983, NIOSH reported findings on the magnitude of nonfatal occupational injury using the 1982 NEISS data (1). This report examining data from 1996 is the first since then to provide national estimates, by age and sex, of the risk for occupational injuries treated in hospital EDs. These data provide a unique perspective on the study of work-related nonfatal injuries because many of the case-capture restrictions common to other sources of occupational injury surveillance data have been removed. In the NEISS, theoretically all nonfatal occupational injuries treated in participating hospital EDs are captured, irrespective of involvement of a consumer product or the worker's eligibility for Workers' Compensation.
