A stable dynamic cohort analysis of installing cost-effective rollover protective structures (CROPS).
Cost-effective rollover protective structures (CROPS) are less costly model-specific rollover protective structure (ROPS) retrofits that are being developed and evaluated with the hope of increasing adoption and eventually preventing or mitigating injuries due to tractor overturns. A dynamic cohort of the estimated retrofittable non-ROPS tractors (accounting for attrition due to aging) was tracked over a 20-year period to determine the expected costs, as well as the expected number of fatal and non-fatal injuries resulting from tractor overturns. Two alternatives were tracked: No-ROPS and Install-CROPS. For a starting cohort size of 1,065,164 (an estimate for the year 2004), the Install-CROPS option prevented an estimated total of 878 (192 fatal and 686 non-fatal) injuries over the 20-year period. Expected costs were $513 million (cost of installing CROPS on all the non-ROPS tractors plus cost of the associated injuries) and $284 million (cost of injuries resulting from the No-ROPS option) over the same time period. Thus, the net cost per injury prevented was $260,820. When the cost of intervention ($1000 for purchasing, shipping, and installation of existing ROPS retrofit) was used in the analysis, the cost-effectiveness ratio was $927,000 per injury prevented over the 20-year period. Thus, installing CROPS instead of existing ROPS retrofits improved the cost-effectiveness ratio substantially, with a 72% reduction in the net cost per injury prevented.
Owusu-Edusei
K
K
Division of Safety Research, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. kfo0@cdc.gov
Biddle
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EA
D000056:Accident Prevention / Q000191:economics*; D000383:Agriculture / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004867:Equipment Design; D004869:Equipment Safety / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D016272:Occupational Health; D015541:Off-Road Motor Vehicles / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D014481:United States; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control