WORK-RELATED PHYSICAL ASSAULT

Violence in the workplace is a serious public health problem. Yet, to date, little has been documented relevant to non-fatal events associat ed with physical assault. The aim of the present study was to identify the magnitude of work-related physical assault in Minnesota and to id entify potential risk factors; both fatal and non-fatal cases were inc luded, Minnesota workers' compensation records, relevant to assault, w ere used to identify 712 cases involving more than three days of lost work time for 1992; six homicide cases were included. Assault rates we re calculated by industry and occupation. Women had an assault rate tw ice that of men (51 versus 26 per 100,000 workers), Workers in industr ies of social services (340), health services (202), and transportatio n (914) had the highest rates of assault per 100,000 full-time employe es, The fact that in addition to overall workers' compensation costs o f $1.6 million, the average lost time for closed compensated cases was 54 days (median, 14 days) and time to reach maximum medical improveme nt for 44 % of the cases reporting was 156 days (median, 83 days), ind icates a major problem. The findings suggest that specific groups of w orkers are at risk for physical assault on the job. Further research i s essential to identify specific risk factors that will enable the dev elopment of appropriate prevention strategies.