Injuries among young workers in career-technical-vocational education and associations with per pupil spending

New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) requires by law for accidents/incidents (injury) involving career-technical-vocational education (CTE) students and staff to be reported within five business days to the NJ Safe Schools Program (NJSS) using an online surveillance system. NJ public schools and charter schools (CS) through school districts (SD) or county offices report school data annually to NJDOE, including per pupil spending (PPS). In this study, we examined potential associations of PPS with several variables on injury in NJ: injury cause, injury location on the body, injury type, injury severity, use of PPE, and location of treatment for injury.

PPS data for December 1998-June 2015 from CTE SDs (one per NJ county, n = 21), four CS SD and eight county special services districts were analyzed. T-test examined potential differences in PPS regarding injury severity and use of personal protective equipment (PPE). Stepwise logistic regression assessed potential associations between PPS and various injury surveillance variables.

There were more CTE injuries reported among SD with lower PPS than among SD with higher PPS. Relatively less severe injuries, e.g., bruise/bumps and cuts/lacerations, more often occurred at schools and SD with higher PPS. Conversely, relatively more severe injuries, e.g., fractures, more often occurred at schools and SD with lower PPS.

Future research should further investigate disparities regarding younger worker injuries reported within school-based career-technical-vocational education programs by PPS and other factors like sex or gender, severity, safety training provided and work experience at time of injury.