The goal of this presentation is to help poison center staff improve their collection of patients' industry and occupation data for work-related exposures. Poison centers provide valuable data to those in the field of worker safety. By asking the right questions and recording the most detailed industry and occupation descriptions possible, poison center staff can help improve those data, and allow occupational safety staff to code this information accurately on their end. Collecting information on a patient's occupation and industry is vital in treating and preventing workplace exposures. By asking about a patient's occupation and industry we can get better insight into their exposure and the conditions under which it occurred, which may impact their treatment options. Gathering this information can also lead to early event detection - are we seeing something new happening that hasn't been an issue before? If so, why is it happening and what can be done to prevent it from happening again? Further, sharing this data about work-related poisonings will help others in the field of worker safety prevent similar injuries. A number of factors can contribute to workplace poisonings, including eating or drinking while working mixing two or more substances and malfunction or inadequate use of personal protective equipment, such as not wearing goggles or gloves, or wearing gloves that are damaged. Other possible contributing factors are malfunction or mechanical failure of equipment, substances under pressure, doing a new procedure that's not a normal task, and substances overheating. Try to match the case events in the narrative with one of these factors. This will help us better understand some of the most common causes of the exposure or poisoning. It's important to understand the distinction between occupation and industry; they are not interchangeable terms. Occupation is what the person does for a living or they type of job they have - the actual work that they do. Often this will be the person's job title. Examples of an occupation include income tax investigator, groundskeeper, registered nurse, computer programmer and medical laboratory technician. Industry, on the other hand, is the type of business where the person works - what the company, rather than the individual, does. Examples of industry include automobile tire manufacturer, advertising agency, country club, retail drug store or construction equipment manufacturer. It's better to ask what the patient's occupation is first, and then ask their industry. This is because more people are familiar with their job title and more easily confused about their industry. A good prompt to for collecting the person's occupation is "What kind of job do you have?" or "What is your job title?" If you receive a vague response, like "consultant," you might follow up with, "What type of consultant are you?" To gather the person's industry, try asking "What type of business are you in?" or "What does your company do or make?" While we can code either occupation or industry based on detailed responses from the patient, it is easier to code both occupation and industry when they are combined, so do your best to get both. Here are some examples of inadequate versus adequate documentation of occupation. A response of "agent" is very broad and does not give much information about the type of job it is. Try to find out what type of agent they are - for example, an insurance agent or a sales agent. The same with a doctor - ask them to be more specific. Are they a physician, dentist or veterinarian? For "technician," a more detailed response would be a civil engineering technician. If someone says they are a maintenance worker, you can ask them, "What kind of maintenance work do you do?" and offer examples such as groundskeeper, janitor, carpenter or electrician. Lastly, if they say they "work in a warehouse" or "work in a shipping department," you might use the prompts to learn that they are a warehouse forklift operator. Here are some examples of inadequate and adequate responses about a person's industry. Again, it's important to get the most specific response you can. For example, if the patient says they work in a repair shop, you can ask, "What type of repair shop?" Responses might be auto repair shop, machine repair or blacksmith shop. Another common vague response is "school." Ask specifically the type of school it is. Possible responses are elementary school, private kindergarten, private college or state university. If the patient works in an office, try to find out what kind of office it is, for example a dentist's or physician's office. Another common vague response is "automobile industry." A more detailed response would be automobile manufacturing or automobile sales. If they say they work in wholesale, ask what kind of wholesale. A response might be grocery wholesale. If the response is "healthcare" ask what area of healthcare. Possible responses are hospital, home health care or outpatient clinic. We're now going to move on to a few case scenarios to help you think about the best documentation of occupation and industry based on a patient's responses. In this case, the caller says he works at GE Aviation as an aircraft engine engineer. His occupation would be engineer and his industry is aircraft engine manufacturing. In this case, while engineer is a bit vague, when we have detailed industry information, like aircraft engine manufacturing, we have a better idea of what type of engineer. We're now going to move on to a few case scenarios to help you think about the best documentation of occupation and industry based on a patient's responses. In this case, the caller says he works at GE Aviation as an aircraft engine engineer. His occupation would be engineer and his industry is aircraft engine manufacturing. In this case, while engineer is a bit vague, when we have detailed industry information, like aircraft engine manufacturing, we have a better idea of what type of engineer. In this case, a crossing guard employed by the local elementary school was directing traffic when she was exposed to fumes from agricultural chemicals from a truck that drove by. Her occupation is crossing guard, and her industry would be elementary school. Here, the caller states that she is a self-employed artist with a studio above the garage in her home. Her occupation is artist and the industry would be self-employed in the arts. For case scenario #5, the patient is a welder working for a company that fabricates steel structures in a factory. The occupation is welder and the industry is steel fabrication or steel product manufacturing. In this case, the patient is a farmer who was treating corn with chlorine gas in a post-harvest facility and became exposed to the chlorine gas. His occupation is farmer and the industry is crop production. Finally, we have a police officer working in an airport. His occupation is police or patrol officer, and since he is conducting *law enforcement* activities for the airport, the industry would be justice or public order. To summarize what we have covered about how to collect responses about a patient's occupation and industry, an occupation is what a person is doing for a living and the industry is the type of business or activity at the person's place of work. It is important to ask the patient what their occupation is first because people are more familiar with explaining that than their industry. Be sure to ask probing questions to get a more specific response, and do your best to collect both occupation and industry so that we can code them more accurately. Here are some additional resources about Census industry and occupation categories, as well as training documents developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. US Census Industry and Occupation at http://census.gov/topics/employment/industry-occupation/about/occupation.html Training for Cancer Registrars at http://cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2011-173/pdfs/2011-173.pdf?id=10.26616/NIOSHPUB2011173 Tips for Obtaining Good Industry and Occupation Information at c.ymcdn.com/sites/cste.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/OccupationalHealth/Tips_for_BRFSS_Interviewers_.pdf For questions about collection or coding of occupation and industry, please contact the New Hampshire Occupational Health Surveillance Program at (603) 862-2923, Monday through Thursday, 9 am to 4 pm. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following individuals and organizations to this training module: * Pamela Schumacher, Expert Coder at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Surveillance Program * The New Hampshire Occupational Health Surveillance Program, part of the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire * The Northern New England Poison Center * And Erica Lyster from the University of New Hampshire Internship Program All of the photos used in this presentation were obtained from The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's website. Now that you have completed this training, you may take a quiz to assess your knowledge in the collection of industry and occupation variables from patients or from medical documentation. Upon completion, if you score at least 80%, you will be able to download a certificate of completion. If you score less than 80%, you will have the opportunity to retake the quiz. The link to the quiz is at: http://ow.ly/j0rm30odgkL