Case identification of work-related traumatic brain injury using the occupational injury and illness classification system.

OBJECTIVES: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most common, costly, and disabling occupational injuries. Objectives included determining whether work-related TBI could be reliably identified using the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) and describing challenges in developing an OIICS-based TBI case definition.
METHODS: Washington State trauma registry reports and workers' compensation claims were linked (1998 to 2008). Trauma registry diagnoses were used as the gold standard for six OIICS-based TBI case definitions.
RESULTS: The OIICS-based case definitions were highly specific but had low sensitivity, capturing less than a third of fatal and nonfatal TBI.
CONCLUSION: The use of OIICS versus International Classification of Diseases-Ninth Revision-Clinical Modification codes underestimated TBI and changed the attributable cause distribution, with potential implications for prevention efforts. Surveillance methods that can more fully and accurately capture the impact of work-related TBI across the United States are needed.