title: Occupational injuries in Canadian youth: an analysis of 22 years of surveillance data collected from the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Inexperience, inadequate training and differential hazard exposure may contribute to a higher risk of injury in young workers. This study describes features of work-related injuries in young Canadians to identify areas for potential occupational injury prevention strategies.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed records for youth aged 10-17 presenting to Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP) emergency departments (EDs) from 1991-2012. We classified work-related injuries into job groups corresponding to National Occupational Classification for Statistics 2006 codes and conducted descriptive analyses to assess injury profiles by job group. Age- and sex-adjusted proportionate injury ratios (PIRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to compare the nature of injuries between occupational and non-occupational events overall and by job group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 6046 injuries (0.72% of events in this age group) that occurred during work, 63.9% were among males. Youth in food and beverage occupations (54.6% males) made up 35.4% of work-related ED visits and 10.2% of work-related hospital admissions, while primary industry workers (76.4% males) made up 4.8% of work-related ED visits and 24.6% of work-related hospital admissions. PIRs were significantly elevated for burns (9.77, 95% CI: 8.94-10.67), crushing/amputations (6.72, 95% CI: 5.79-7.80), electrical injuries (6.04, 95% CI: 3.64-10.00), bites (5.09, 95% CI: 4.47-5.79), open wounds (2.68, 95% CI: 2.59-2.78) and eye injuries (2.50, 95% CI: 2.20-2.83) in occupational versus non-occupational events. These were largely driven by high proportional incidence of injury types unique to job groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings provide occupation group-specific information on common injury types that can be used to support targeted approaches to reduce incidence of youth injury in the workplace.
authors.affiliation: Surveillance and Epidemiology Division, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.|Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pratt
authors.affiliation: Surveillance and Epidemiology Division, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cheesman
authors.affiliation: Institute of Work and Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Breslin
authors.affiliation: Surveillance and Epidemiology Division, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.|Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Do
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002170:Canada / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D060389:Construction Industry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D019649:Food Industry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D060051:Occupational Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D011041:Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices
keywords: adolescent; injury surveillance; occupational injuries; young workers; youth injuries