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Traumatic injury rates in meatpacking plant workers.

Culp K; Brooks M; Rupe K; Zwerling C

J Agromedicine 2008 Jan; 13(1):7-16

https://doi.org/10.1080/10599240801985373

20040613

This was a 3-year retrospective cohort study of traumatic injuries in a midwestern pork meatpacking plant. Based on n = 5410 workers, this was a diverse workforce: Caucasian (56.6%), Hispanic (38.9%), African American (2.7%), Asian (1.1%) and Native American (0.8%). There were n = 1655 employees with traumatic injuries during this period. At 6 months of employment, the probability of injury was 33% in the harvest workers who were responsible for slaughter operations. The overall incidence injury rate was 22.76 per 100 full-time employees per year. Women experienced a higher incidence for injury than men. The risk ratio (RR) for traumatic injury was significantly lower in Hispanic workers compared to Caucasians (RR = 0.54, 95% CI = 0.49-0.60) and nonsignificantly higher in African American and Native American workers after adjusting for age, gender, work section assignment, and experience (RR = 1.33, 95% CI = 1.21-1.47). These findings suggest that either Hispanics are very safe employees or they underreport injuries. We make the case for the latter in the discussion.

Humans; Adolescents; Men; Women; Age-groups; Traumatic-injuries; Injuries; Meat-handlers; Meat-packing-industry; Workers; Sociological-factors; Risk-factors; Pathology; Food-processing-industry; Food-processing-workers; Accidents; Musculoskeletal-system; Musculoskeletal-system-disorders; Author Keywords: Work; injuries; meat processing

Kennith Culp, PhD, RN, FAAN, College of Nursing, University of Iowa, 50 Newton Rd, Iowa City, IA 52241

20080101

Journal Article

ken-culp@uiowa.edu

Grant; Cooperative Agreement

2008

Grant-Number-T42-OH-008491; Cooperative-Agreement-Number-U60-OH-008460

1

1059-924X

Wholesale and Retail Trade; Services

Journal of Agromedicine

IA; MO

University of Iowa