The epidemiology of life-threatening work-related injury--a demonstration paper.
BACKGROUND
Workers' compensation (WC) data traditionally provides information to stakeholders on work-related disabling injuries. It is important to complement this with information on serious threat to life (TTL) injury, which is the focus of this paper.


METHODS
In this cross-sectional descriptive epidemiological study, based on New Zealand's WC data linked to hospital discharge data, TTL was measured using the ICD10-based Injury Severity Score (ICISS); ICISS ≤ 0.941 was used to define serious TTL injury.


RESULTS
During 2002-2004, there was an average of 368 serious TTL work-related injury cases annually. The distribution of these injuries was very different from those traditionally found using WC data to describe disabling injury. For example, for serious TTL injury the main injury types included traumatic brain injury, whereas for disabling injury it was sprains and dislocations.


CONCLUSIONS
The method presented provides the opportunity for government agencies to produce a national description of the epidemiology of serious TTL work-related injuries.
Injury Prevention Research Unit, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Colin
C
Cryer
Ari
A
Samaranayaka
John D
JD
Langley
Gabrielle
G
Davie
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015601:Injury Severity Score; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009520:New Zealand / Q000453:epidemiology; D060051:Occupational Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*; D063886:Patient Discharge Summaries; D014942:Workers' Compensation; D055815:Young Adult
epidemiologic methods; serious; workplace; wounds and injuries