Characteristics of agricultural and occupational injuries by workers’ compensation and other payer sources

Abstract

Background: Workers’ compensation claims data are routinely used to identify and describe work-related injury for public health surveillance and research, yet the proportion of work-related injuries covered by workers’ compensation, especially in the agricultural industry, is unknown. Methods: Using data from the Iowa Trauma Registry, we determined the sensitivity and specificity of the use of workers’ compensation as a payer source to ascertain work-related injuries requiring acute care comparing agriculture with other rural industries. Results: The sensitivity of workers’ compensation as a payer source to identify work-related agricultural injuries was 18.5%, suggesting that the large majority of occupational agricultural injuries would not be accurately identified through workers’ compensation records. For rural nonagricultural, rural occupational injuries, the sensitivity was higher (64.2%). Work-related agricultural injuries were most frequently covered by private insurance (39.6%) and public insurance (21.4%), while rural nonagricultural injuries were most frequently covered by workers’ compensation (65.2%). Conclusions: Workers’ compensation claims data will not include the majority of work-related agricultural injuries.

Clinical characteristics and outcomes of injuries in agricultural and nonagricultural workers visiting the emergency department: a propensity-matched analysis

“…These results are consistent with previous findings that evaluated the characteristics and factors associated with agricultural injuries: a higher proportion of older individuals, more men than women, low worker compensation coverage, more accidental than intentional injuries, and major injury mechanisms involving lacerations and sprain or strain that occurred in the farm field during paid work with time variation in terms of season, days of the week, and daytime events [10,12,16,26,27].…”

“…gy of injuries to agricultural workers and compare it with injuries to workers in other industries. However, most previous studies focused only on agricultural workers as the study population, with relatively few studies directly comparing agricultural workers with workers in other industries [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Therefore, information about the clinical aspects of injuries to agricultural workers, distinct from other industries' workers, remains unclear due to a lack of appropriate data sources.…”

Musculoskeletal Disorders in Agriculture: A Review from Web of Science Core Collection

“…Private insurance companies cover most MSD claims related to the agricultural sector. The compensation is insufficient and does not cover the most common ailments (USA) [265]. Agricultural business owners in South Korea adopted participatory approaches with their workers, which resulted in efficiency, safety and job satisfaction benefits.…”

Using hospitalization data for injury surveillance in agriculture, forestry and fishing: a crosswalk between ICD10CM external cause of injury coding and The Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System

“…Specialized agricultural injury surveys still exist, such as the Farm and Ranch Injury and Illness Survey (Rautiainen et al, 2019), but many national agricultural injury surveys have been discontinued due to unsustainable cost. (CDC, 2020) There is evidence that existing administrative databases, such as workers' compensation (Missikpode et al, 2019;Kaustell et al, 2019), hospitalization data (Kica & Rosenman, 2020;Zagel et al, 2019;Scott et al, 2015;Allen et al, 2015;Grandizio et al, 2015), trauma registries (Reece et al, 2018;Grandizio et al, 2018), and pre-hospital care reports (PCR) (Scott et al, 2019;Scott et al, 2017a;Scott et al, 2011;Earle-Richardson et al, 2011;Forst & Erskine, 2009), are useful as a data source for AFF injury surveillance. While researchers are constrained to the variables contained within these systems, these datasets are often no-or low-cost, and are continually gathered, making them ideal for ongoing surveillance.…”