A retrospective case-control study of ladder fall accidents

Epidemiological techniques have become more sophisticated in recent years as applied to investigating major public health issues such as smoking, heart attacks, and traffic fatalities. This study demonstrates the value of using an epidemiologic approach for identifying risk factors associated with ladder fall accidents occurring on the job. The results of structured interviews with workers recently experiencing ladder falls at work were compared with those of control workers in the same company, who were ladder users but had not had a previous ladder fall, through various univariate and multivariate statistical techniques. In all, 123 case and 142 control subjects were compared in over 200 items classified into four categories of variables: (a) personal but nonoccupationally related (e.g., personality and life stress factors, risk-taking indicators); (b) personal and occupationally related (e.g., job experience, prior on-the-job injuries, job Stressors); (c) working condition related (e.g., work schedule, work demands), and; (d) ladder-use related (e.g., hours worked on ladder, surface on which set up, presence of defective condition). The results confirmed the hypothesis that factors temporally closest to the accident event, (i.e., specific ladder use and working condition variables) are stronger predictors of ladder falls than variables further away from the event, namely, individual characteristics. This finding sheds light on the relative value of various types of accident control measures that can be taken since such risk factors are not only the most predictive, but are also those more easily dealt with by companies through various administrative and procedural controls.