0324 Misclassification of animal handling injuries to swine workers

Background Injuries resulting from animal handling are the most frequent, serious, and costly injuries to swine workers. Characterising injury burden related to animal handling and developing and evaluating appropriate prevention measures requires correct identification of injury cause. We examined the occurrence and consequences of animal handling injury misclassification in two large swine production companies in the U.S. Methods Records for all potential animal related injuries and the injury event narratives were reviewed and independently coded based on the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) coding tree. The original and re-coded data were evaluated for agreement in source and injury event for all injuries caused by animals. The resulting frequency of misclassified injuries and the potential cost burden were summarised based on medical and indemnity payments. Results From a total of 1573 reported injuries, 331 were reported to be caused by animals. The re-coded data increased the number to 435. Re-coded data from companies accounted for an additional 104 injuries. It was more common for companies to under-ascertain animals as the source of injury (26%, 114/435) than it was to incorrectly assign animals as the source of injury (2%, 8/435). Costs related to the originally reported animal handling injuries totaled $1,537,163, and an additional $1 82 580 (12%) was added to the total with the re-classified injuries. Conclusion Misclassification of cause of injury may result in an underestimate of total injury burden from animal related injuries and would hamper evaluation of the evaluation of strategies to prevent animal handling injuries.