Characteristics of occupational burns in Oregon, 2001-2006.
BACKGROUND
Occupational burns are known to be a serious public health concern. This article describes work-related burns in Oregon between 2001 and 2006.


METHODS
Oregon Workers' Compensation (WC) burn claims were analyzed; data from a commercial insurance carrier (CIC) was used to characterize non-disabling burn claims. To ensure that our primary data source (WC) captures as many burn cases as possible, we compared hospitalized cases to a regional burn center (RBC) and Oregon hospital discharge index (HDI) data.


RESULTS
The WC burn injury rate ranged from a high of 1.8 per 10,000 workers in 2001 to a low of 1.4 per 10,000 in 2004. We identified 2,165 accepted burn claims in CIC data, of which 85% were non-disabling. We matched data from a regional burn center to a subset of hospitalized claims from WC data and found an additional 44 cases of occupational hospitalized burns representing a 3% increase in total cases captured.


CONCLUSIONS
Occupational burns continue to be a problem for working Oregonians, and the use of additional data sources outside of WC augments our surveillance system.
Walters
Jaime K
JK
Office of Environmental Public Health, Oregon Department of Human Services, Portland, Oregon 97232, USA. jaime.walters@state.or.us
D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D002056:Burns / Q000145:classification* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015984:Causality; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000145:classification* / Q000453:epidemiology; D009790:Occupations / Q000145:classification; D009922:Oregon / Q000453:epidemiology; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014942:Workers' Compensation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult