Identifying MSDs in MSHA accident/injury/illness databases

摘要

Identification of Musculoskeletal (MSD) injuries in computerized mining safety and health databases is a tedious, time consuming process due to the lack of a method to quickly and accurately identify accidents/ injuries which might be MSDs. This study was conducted to develop and validate a method to quickly and accurately identify MSD type injuries in MSHA databases. To do this, entries in the Nature of Injury (NOI) injury fields in the databases were used to identity cases which might which might be MSDs. These analyses revealed that the NOI field was a very accurate means by which MSD injuries could be identified. Replication of the selection procedure returned nearly identical results. The methods described here are an efficient and accurate method by which to search large computerized databases, in this case the MSHA accident/injury/illness databases, for MSD injuries.