Acute work injuries among electric utility linemen

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Workplace Safety
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Electric utility work involves inherent risks, with varying injury rates across different job roles.
• Understanding these differences is crucial for targeted safety interventions and injury prevention strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze and compare acute work injury rates among electric utility linemen based on their specific job tasks.
• To identify key risk factors, such as prior injuries, associated with acute injuries in different lineman roles.

Main Methods:

• Utilized incidence-density rate ratios to assess injury rates across job titles.
• Employed logistic regression to model the influence of demographic and historical injury data.
• Collected work injury and person-time data for transmission, distribution, and apprentice linemen.

Main Results:

• Apprentice linemen exhibited the highest acute injury rate (43.3 per 100 person-work-years), followed by distribution linemen (27.8) and transmission linemen (18.9).
• Trunk injuries and sprains/strains were the most common injury types.
• A history of lost time injury significantly increased the risk of subsequent injuries for transmission (OR=1.6) and distribution linemen (OR=1.5).

Conclusions:

• Job role significantly impacts acute injury risk for electric utility linemen, with apprentices facing the greatest risk.
• Prior injury history is a critical predictor of future lost time injuries in transmission and distribution roles.
• Targeted safety measures and risk assessments should consider job-specific hazards and individual injury histories.