WORK-RELATED TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY IN WASHINGTON-STATE, 1988 THROUGH1990

Objectives. Brain trauma is a major cause of disability in the United States, especially among young adults. Work-related brain trauma cases represent a subpopulation that may be amenable to intervention effort s, but largely because of unavailability of data, this group has not p reviously been studied. Methods. Washington State workers' compensatio n data were used to identify brain trauma cases and to describe incide nce rates with respect to age, gender, and industrial classification. Cause of injury was evaluated for industrial classifications with nume rous cases. Results. Washington State workers experienced 301 brain tr aumas over a 3-year period (9.4/100000 full-time-equivalent workers pe r year). One third of all traumatic brain injury claims were concentra ted among seven industrial classifications, Cause of injury was highly correlated with specific industrial classifications. Conclusions. Thi s study demonstrates the usefulness of diagnosis-related group codes t o identify cases of traumatic brain injury. These injuries are concent rated among a few industries, with a dominant specific cause for each industry. This suggests that intervention methods may be efficiently i ntroduced to reduce traumatic brain injuries in the workplace.