Antecedent factors and disabling occupational morbidity--insights from the new BLS data

Since 1992 the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) annual survey of occupational injuries and illnesses (SOII) has collected data on occupational injuries and illnesses involving 1 or more days away from work (DAW). However, to date, the BLS has not published a comprehensive set of cross-tabulated part of body (BP), nature of injury or illness (NOI), and exposure/event (EE) data. To improve the understanding of the causes of disabling occupational morbidity in the United States, the present study used a special data call and data reduction strategy to identify the leading BP-NOI-EE combinations for DAW cases by frequency, incidence rate, and severity (median DAW) for 1996. The results indicated that the majority of injury and illness morbidity reported by the BLS was related to musculoskeletal conditions of either gradual or sudden onset and traumatic injuries of sudden onset. In particular, traumatic injuries from sudden events such as falls resulted in the most disabling cases. The results indicate that the occupational morbidity identified in the SOII requires interventions focused on overexertion and falls, as well as more traditional injury prevention approaches. The BLS can improve the utility of the system by adding provisions for a second event code to the coding structure and by improving direct access to these data for occupational health and safety professionals.