Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #103870

Brian McCall, PhD, Industrial Relations Center, University of Minnesota, 3-251 Carlson School of Management, 321-19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, 612-624-9521, bmccall@csom.umn.edu and Irwin Horwitz, PhD, School of Public Health, University of Texas, 1200 Herman Pressler, Suite E303, Houston, TX 77089.

While numerous studies have found shift work to be a significant factor for decreased cognitive functioning and judgment error among employees, much less work has been done to assess if shift work is a factor in occupational accidents leading to injury. This study uses workers' compensation data from Nebraska from 1998-2003 to assess whether evening and night shift workers are at higher risk of occupational injury relative to their daytime counterparts. Nebraska is a particularly valuable state for examining shift work injury as it is one of the few states that record time of injury. In assessing risk, employee demographics such as age and gender, as well as measures of injury severity such as costs and indemnity duration periods will be examined by shift. Data from the Department of Labor will be used to estimate worker baselines by shift for the purpose of conducting the risk analyses. The analysis of injury by shift will be both broadly examined, as well as broken down by specific employee occupations and demographic characteristics such as gender and age to identify employee populations which may be most profoundly affected by shift work. In doing so, the analysis will provide the basis for identifying and prioritizing where preventative measures would be most useful. The results from will be compared with findings from previous research, and provide the basis for consideration of what measures would best address the problems faced by shift workers. Limitations of this study will be discussed and areas for future research identified.

Learning Objectives:

1.Provide a background of past research on shift work and employee safety. 2.Detail differences of injury rates by shift experienced by Nebraska employees. 3.Compare the costs and severity of injuries sustained by workers on differing shifts.
• Distinguish occupations, industries, and employee demographics which are most vulnerable to injury from late night shift work.
• Identify areas and methods which would be most useful for future research on shift work injury in the future.

Keywords: Occupational Safety, Injury Risk

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.