Occupational Injury

Summary of Discussions from the April 2-3, 2001 Meeting Breakouts (2 sessions)

Geography represented:

• United States
• New Zealand
• Netherlands
• Australia
• Canada
• Europe
• Russia by proxy

Discussed Criteria/parameters national data would need to meet to be included in a larger international comparison of fatal occupational injuries. Also discussed the desirable variables and their values/codes.

Agreed to post the criteria on the AdvICE LISTSERV, to both invite discussion and for consideration to by other countries to include their data in a larger comparison.

Other points of discussion:

• There was interest expressed in focusing on exploring international comparison of work injuries among youth, especially in agricultural settings. (ICE Teen?)
• Should we also strive to develop similar criteria and attempt to compare work-related hospitalizations (especially as U.S. moves to ICD-10) New target/goal?
• Should we also strive to influence change in data collections to allow for comparable data with other countries (rather than just assume must accept what is readily available)
• Noted that international comparisons can be very powerful in getting high-level attention and in making the argument for change; that international investment in revising data collections to conform to new, more comparable standards can be worthwhile. Perhaps this group should develop some position statement on this?
• It was agreed that there would be value in analyzing the European Union international data and comparing other countries to the U.S./Australia/New Zealand data set to identify differences and determine the feasibility of improving comparability between international data. We will proceed to explore this opportunity.

Discussed proposing the following topics for a session on International Comparison of Occupational Injuries for the Montreal conference :

• Motor Vehicle death comparison
• International Reliability of coding
• Analysis of European Union data
• International comparison of ED data
• Roundtable discussion of harmonizing national data for international comparisons

• List of Occupational Variables [PPT - 41 KB]