Expanded analysis of injury mortality among unionized construction workers

Background To evaluate the utility of expanding the number and precision of injury categories used in previous occupational mortality studies, this st udy reanalyzed data from four previous studies of unionized construction wo rkers (construction laborers, ironworkers, sheet metal workers, and operati ng engineers), by expanding the number of injury categories from 6 to 33. Methods Proportionate mortality ratios (PMRs) were computed using the distr ibution of deaths from the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance Sys tem, a mortality surveillance system from 28 states, as a comparison. A blu e collar comparison group was also used in additional analyses to adjust fo r socioeconomic and other factors. Results This reanalysis identified significantly elevated PMRs in at least one of the four worker groups for falls, motor vehicle crashes, machinery i ncidents, electrocutions, being struck by falling objects, being struck by flying objects, explosions, suffocation, and water transport incidents. Lim iting the comparison population to deaths among blue collar workers did not change the results substantially. Conclusion This study demonstrates that increasing the precision of categor ies of death from injury routinely used in mortality studies will provide i mproved information to guide prevention. Am. J. Ind. Med. 37:364-373, 2000. Published 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.(dagger)