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

Abstract #107857

Jia Li, MS¹, Toni Alterman, PhD², James Grosch, PhD², and Martin R. Petersen, PhD². (1) Constella Group, Inc., 5555 Ridge Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45213, (2) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45226, 513-841-4210, txa8@cdc.gov

Interview data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 2001-2002 for 39,053 currently working adults ages 18-64 were linked with job characteristics from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) 98 to examine lost work days, emergency room visits, and injury or poisoning episodes. Job characteristics were chosen from categories of interpersonal relationships (e.g. responsibility), physical requirements, and structural characteristics (e.g. accuracy, pacing). Multiple log-linear regression was used to model associations between health outcomes and job characteristics, with adjustment for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and family income. Adjusted incidence rates, incidence density ratios, and confidence intervals were calculated. Backward selection was used to identify best subset of job characteristics for each outcome, adjusted for the confounders above. Overall incidence rates per 1,000 person-years were 4,110 days of work loss, 285 emergency room visits, and 88 episodes of injury/poisoning. The final model for work loss included time spent kneeling, crouching, or crawling; and pace determined by speed of equipment. For emergency room visits, the final model included responsibility for others' health and safety; time spent keeping or regaining balance; and importance of being exact and accurate. For injury/poisoning, the final model included responsibility for work outcomes and results; and time spent kneeling, crouching, or crawling. These results suggest consideration of interpersonal, physical and structural job characteristics when measuring health outcomes. Limitations include use of expert ratings of job characteristics and self-report data. The development of the O*NET provides an exciting tool for occupational health researchers, but further exploration is needed.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Describe the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) developed by the Department of Labor.
• 2. Develop a method for linking data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to health surveys.
• 3. Discuss the potential role of interpersonal, physical, and structural job characteristics in describing health outcomes.

Keywords: Occupational Health, Survey

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.