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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Karen B. Mulloy, DO, MSCH¹, Stephanie Moraga-McHaley, MS¹, and M. Helen Flowers, MS². (1) Department of Internal Medicine, Program in Occupational & Environmental Health, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, 505-272-4027, KMulloy@salud.unm.edu, (2) Environmental Health Epidemiology Bureau, New Mexico Department of Health, 1190 South St. Francis Drive, Santa Fe, NM 87502

Workplace injuries remain a significant problem in the U.S. with workplace hazards responsible for tremendous toll in both human and economic costs. It is estimated that a worker is injured every five seconds. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2002 that 5,524 workers in private industry died as a result of work related injuries. The National Safety Council estimated in 1996 that on-the-job injuries alone cost society $121 billion.

In 2002, the New Mexico Department of Health and University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, received a grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and established an occupational injury and illnesses surveillance system for the state of New Mexico, the New Mexico Occupational Health Registry (NMOHR).

NMOHR has participated in a collaborative effort between Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), NIOSH, and federally funded and unfunded states conducting occupational health surveillance to pilot test occupational health indicators. The current characterization of occupational fatality in New Mexico arose from the occupational health indicator project, which revealed an occupational fatality rate for New Mexico in 2000 (4.4/100,000 workers) on par with the US rate.

This study is an assessment and characterization of occupational injury mortality in New Mexico from 1998-2002 that applies the methods of the CSTE Occupational Indicators and explores the utility of vital records data in combination with Census of Fatal Occupational Injury (CFOI) data for conducting occupational injury mortality surveillance.

Learning Objectives: