Occupational injury surveillance among electric utility employees

Currently, there are only limited injury surveillance data for the electric utility workforce. To address this gap, an Occupational Health Surveillance Database for electric power utilities was established for epidemiologic monitoring and intervention program evaluation. Injury rates varied across utility occupations, such as, managers, line workers, and meter readers, ranging from 0.18 to 9.63 per 100 employee-years based on more than 500,000 employee-years of observation. Compared with male workers, the risk of injury among female workers was lower overall, although their risk was higher in nonoffice occupations than their male counterparts. Across the period 2000 to 2002, three of four companies that experienced decreases in workforce size also experienced noticeable increases in injury rates. Our results suggest that benchmarking and prevention efforts should be directed at specific occupational groups and specific injury types.