The impact of non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses on mortality

Background

Little research has examined the relationship between non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses, and long-term mortality.

Methods

We linked non-fatal injury cases reported to the New Mexico workers’ compensation system for 1994–2000 with Social Security Administration data on individual earnings and mortality through 2014. We then derived sex-specific Kaplan–Meier curves to show time to death for workers with lost-time injuries (n = 36,377) and comparison workers (n = 70,951). We fit multivariable Cox survival models to estimate the hazard ratio separately for male and female workers with lost-time injuries.

Results

The estimated hazard ratio for lost-time injuries is 1.24 for women and 1.21 for men. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals were 1.15, 1.35 and 1.15, 1.27, respectively.

Conclusion

Lost-time occupational injuries are associated with a substantially elevated mortality hazard. This implies an important formerly unmeasured cost of these injuries and a further reason to focus on preventing them. Am. J. Ind. Med. 9999:XX–XX, © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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