Acute work injuries among electric utility meter readers

This report provides estimates of incidence rates for acute work injuries for a well defined cohort of electric utility meter readers. Specifically, person-time rates by sex, age, and job experience are evaluated by part of body injured and type of injury. Meter readers experienced 731 acute lost time [11.1 per 100 person-work years; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 10.3-11.9] and 4,401 acute non-lost time (66.5 per 100 person-work years; 95% CI = 64.6-68.5) work injuries over the study period, 1980-1992. Women had nearly twice the lost time injury rate as men (17.5 vs 9.6 per 100 person-work years). There is an inverse relation between job experience and both lost time and non-lost time injuries. Although these data are limited to the electric utility industry, they may be relevant to occupations with similar tasks and environments, including residential gas and water supply industry meter readers and postal carriers.