Surveillance of Serious Work-Related Trauma

The goal of the Serious Work-Related Trauma grant was to add to the understanding of the nature, frequency, and risk factors for serious occupational injuries for the purpose of prevention. A major aim of this grant was testing the possibility of establishing a tracking (surveillance) system for serious work-related trauma by linking currently existing information. Existing data include hospital discharge data, data from trauma centers and the MDH Trauma Registry and Workers’ Compensation reports. With the aid of an advisory board of physicians, trauma center staff and researchers, study methods were developed, including an operational definition of “serious work-related trauma”, to assure comparability in data collected from different sources. Injury data has been collected from 18 participating hospitals and medical centers, and interviews have been completed for a sample of workers with serious occupational injuries. An abstract of the final technical report can be found at the CDC/NIOSH website.

Project Funded By: NIOSH
Project Begin: September 1999
Project End: September 2003
Grant Number: 5R01 OH003943
Principal Investigator: Ronald French
Project Director: Christina Larson