Acute work injuries among electric utility meter readers.

This report provides estimates of incidence rates for acute work injuries for a well defined cohort of electric utility meter readers. Specifically, person-time rates by sex, age, and job experience are evaluated by part of body injured and type of injury. Meter readers experienced 731 acute lost time [11.1 per 100 person-work years; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 10.3-11.9] and 4,401 acute non-lost time (66.5 per 100 person-work years; 95% CI = 64.6-68.5) work injuries over the study period, 1980-1992. Women had nearly twice the lost time injury rate as men (17.5 vs 9.6 per 100 person-work years). There is an inverse relation between job experience and both lost time and non-lost time injuries. Although these data are limited to the electric utility industry, they may be relevant to occupations with similar tasks and environments, including residential gas and water supply industry meter readers and postal carriers.

Acute work injuries among electric utility linemen.

This analysis presents differences in acute work injury rates among electric utility linemen who perform different work tasks. Incidence-density rate ratios were the primary measure of association and are based on the work injury and person-time data for each job title. Logistic regression was used to model race, age, job experience, total inservice, prior injury, and time from prior injury. Transmission linemen had the lower acute injury rate with 18.9 per 100 person-work-years (95% CI 16-20), distribution linemen had 27.8 per 100 person-work-years (95% CI 27-28), and apprentice linemen had 43.3 per 100 person-work-years (95% CI 41-45). Injuries to the trunk and sprains and strains are the predominant injury categories. Having a prior lost time injury increases the risk for subsequent lost time injury for transmission linemen (OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.0-2.7) and for distribution linemen (OR = 1.5, 95% CI = 1.3-1.6).