Nonfatal occupational injuries are a significant public health problem in the U.S., imposing substantial human and economic costs. Surveillance of these injuries at the state as well as the national levels is essential to set research priorities and to target and evaluate prevention efforts. NIOSH has specifically called for developing approaches for integrating occupational safety elements into evolving public health information systems. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is currently developing a statewide, electronic, e-coded injury surveillance system to track the incidence and causes of all injuries treated in hospital emergency departments. This system is known as the Emergency Department Surveillance and Coordinated Injury Prevention (ED SCIP) system. The proposed project seeks to evaluate the feasibility of using this comprehensive injury surveillance system for surveillance of occupational injuries.
Specific aims of this study are to: 1) Evaluate the sensitivity, specificity and predictive value of the indicators of work-related injury in the ED SCIP database; 2) Assess the extent to which employment information is included in the medical record and/or electronic data systems of participating hospitals and the feasibility of routinely obtaining this information; 3) Evaluate the quality of e-codes for occupational injuries; 4) Evaluate two proposed alternative injury coding protocols for occupational injury surveillance; and 5) Generate a descriptive epidemiology of occupational injuries treated in emergency departments and compare with findings from traditional occupational injury data sources in Massachusetts to identify potential biases in these data systems.
Aims 1 -4 will be accomplished by comparing information obtained through systematic chart reviews with information contained in the ED SCIP database for a sample of ED SCIP cases, and interviews with medical records personnel. Comparison of ED SCIP and traditional data sources will be based on summary findings and focus on patterns of occupational injury by age, gender, cause and nature of injury and distribution by occupation and industry. Findings will be widely disseminated to data providers and users.
| Davis, Letitia K; Hunt, Phillip R; Hackman, H Holly et al. (2012) Use of statewide electronic emergency department data for occupational injury surveillance: a feasibility study in Massachusetts. Am J Ind Med 55:344-52 |
| Hunt, P R; Hackman, H; Berenholz, G et al. (2007) Completeness and accuracy of International Classification of Disease (ICD) external cause of injury codes in emergency department electronic data. Inj Prev 13:422-5 |
