A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF WORK-RELATED INJURY AMONG YOUTH TREATED IN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS

Telephone interviews were conducted with 146 14- to 16-year-olds who i ncurred an occupational injury treated in an emergency department duri ng the period July through September 1992. Thirty-two percent of the i njuries occurred as the result of using equipment. Over half the worke rs reported not having received prior training on how to avoid injury. The injury limited normal activities for at least 1 day for 68% of th e youth and for more than a week for 25%, corresponding to an estimate d 6,208 (95% CI: 4,277, 8,139) and 2,639 (95% CI: 1,580, 3,699) youths nationwide, respectively. Employment in retail trades, equipment use, lack of training, and burn injuries were associated with increased li mitation of normal activities. Nineteen percent of the youths appear t o have been injured in jobs declared to be hazardous, or typically pro hibited for their age (14- and 15-year-olds) under federal child labor laws. The prohibited job directly contributed to the injury in 64% of these cases. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.