A epidemiologic study of factors associated with the economic costs of occupational injuries
Description
The economic impact of occupational injuries is a significant burden to employees, industry, and society in general. Despite this burden, epidemiologic analyses of occupational injuries is an area that has only recently received an increasing amount of attention, and few studies have applied epidemiologic methods of analysis to the study of occupational injury costs. The following reports the results of an epidemiologic analysis of factors associated with the direct costs to a single company of medically-treated job related injuries in the offshore oil and gas exploration industry. Injury records maintained by the company were examined and 1726 claims for medically-treated injuries occurring between 1979 and 1981 were selected. Doctors' diagnoses were abstracted from accompanying medical reports and injury severity scores assigned according to the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS). Information regarding characteristics of the injured workers, the circumstances of the injury event, and the direct costs to the company were available from a database maintained by the company. The relative odds of an injury incurring costs above the 95th percentile for four categories of cost (compensation, medical treatment, legal costs, settlement awards) and total costs were found to be significantly increased for employees hired less than three months, for injuries incurred in falls, for injuries sustained while moving from one area of the rig to another, for strain and impact related injuries, and for injuries involving the back. While not all of these factors were significantly related to costs in all four categories, for those categories in which they were associated with high costs, odds ratios remained significant after controlling for the effects of injury severity, and number of injuries sustained. Injuries to recently hired employees were approximately twice as likely to incur high legal, settlement, and total costs as were injuries to employees with two or more years with the company. This finding is independent of body part affected, injury severity as measured by the AIS, and number of injuries sustained