TY - JOUR PY - 2009// TI - Characteristics of occupational burns in Oregon, 2001-2006 JO - American journal of industrial medicine A1 - Walters, Jaime K. SP - 380 EP - 390 VL - 52 IS - 5 N2 - 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.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0271-3586 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajim.20689 ID - ref1 ER -