title: Traumatic injury rates in meatpacking plant workers.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Occupational Health Nursing, College of Nursing, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52241, USA. ken-culp@uiowa.edu
authors.forename: Kennith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Culp
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brooks
authors.forename: Kerri
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rupe
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zwerling
mesh_terms: D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D015331:Cohort Studies; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D018857:Food Packaging / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D017678:Sex Distribution; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000208:ethnology / Q000473:pathology*; D055815:Young Adult