Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Inj Prev. 2018 Feb;24(1):19-28. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2016-042213. Epub 2017 Feb 14.
While survey data are available for national estimates of fire events and firefighter fatalities, data on firefighter injury at the national and local levels remain incomplete and unreliable. Data linkage provides a vehicle to maximise case detection and deepen injury description for the US fire service.
By linking departmental Human Resources records, despatch data, workers' compensation and first reports of injury, researchers were able to describe reported non-fatal injuries to 3063 uniformed members of the Philadelphia Fire Department (PFD), for the period of 2005 through 2013.
Among all four databases, the overall linkage rate was 56%. Among three of the four databases, the linkage rate was 88%. Because there was duplication of some variables among the datasets, we were able to deeply describe all the linked injuries in the master database. 45.5% of uniformed PFD members reported at least one injury during the study period. Strains, falls, burns and struck-by injuries were the most common causes. Burns resulted in the highest lost time claim payout, and strains accounted for the highest medical claim cost. More than 70% of injuries occurred in the first 15 years of experience.
Data linkage provided three new benefits: (1) creation of a new variable-years of experience, (2) reduction of misclassification bias when determining cause of injury, leading to more accurate estimates of cost and (3) visualisation of injury rates when controlling for the number of fire department responses, allowing for the generation of hypotheses to investigate injury hot spots.
虽然有关于火灾事件和消防员死亡的全国性调查数据，但关于国家和地方层面消防员受伤的数据仍然不完整和不可靠。数据链接为美国消防部门提供了最大限度地发现病例和深入描述伤害的手段。
通过链接部门人力资源记录、派遣数据、工人补偿和第一份伤害报告，研究人员能够描述 2005 年至 2013 年期间费城消防局（PFD）3063 名制服成员报告的非致命伤害。
在所有四个数据库中，整体链接率为 56%。在四个数据库中的三个中，链接率为 88%。由于数据集之间存在一些变量的重复，我们能够在主数据库中深入描述所有链接的伤害。在研究期间，45.5%的制服 PFD 成员报告至少有一次受伤。拉伤、摔倒、烧伤和被击中是最常见的原因。烧伤导致的赔偿支出最高，而拉伤导致的医疗索赔费用最高。超过 70%的伤害发生在最初 15 年的工作经验中。
数据链接提供了三个新的好处：（1）创建了一个新变量-工作年限，（2）在确定受伤原因时减少分类偏倚，从而更准确地估计成本，（3）在控制消防部门响应数量的情况下可视化伤害率，从而产生调查受伤热点的假设。
