Development of an occupational illness and injury surveillance database for the electric energy sector

Currently available occupational injury and illness data for electric energy companies provide only overall summary rates. Specific information about types of injury or illnesses, rates by occupational or work environments, and injury costs and severity are generally not readily available. Relevant data such as personnel and claims information are frequently not integrated into a comprehensive health and safety surveillance system suitable for epidemiologic and health and safety research purposes. Epidemiological methods are valuable for identifying key risk factors for work-related injuries and illnesses and assessing their magnitude, as well establishing priorities for health and safety research. Application of such methods can result in long-term reductions in injury and illness rates and their attendant costs. Aggregation of relevant health and safety data across companies improves statistical power for the assessment of rare (yet costly) injuries or illness or specific at-risk subgroups within the electric energy sector. A pilot occupational injury and illness database has been developed that can incorporate and standardize data across a spectrum of companies of differing sizes and configurations. In illustrative data analyses, injury trends were summarized by company size, occupation, and demographic factors, among others. Trends observed in these illustrative analyses were consistent with results previously reported in the epidemiological literature, however, results are considered preliminary pending development of the full database. This study shows that development of a standardized surveillance occupational injury and illness database across companies with different database configurations is feasible. This database will ultimately provide a stable and accurate occupational health and safety assessment tool not currently available for this sector.