ORLANDO, FLA–Experts here warned that workers' compensation systems face impacts from a variety of factors ranging from bed bugs and Iraq war injuries to beryllium dust and language difficulties.
The coming challenges were outlined here by Jennifer Tomlin, senior vice president of Zurich North America, and Robert P. Hartwig, senior vice president and chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute, at a session of the Workers' Compensation Educational Conference.
The session was one of seven sessions on national trends put on by The National Underwriter Company as part of its partnership with the Florida Workers' Compensation Institute, which runs the WCEC program, a partnership of the Florida Workers' Compensation Institute and The National Underwriter Company.
In addition to injury causes already resulting in claims, they also issued cautions about nanotechnology and bird flu.
Mr. Hartwig said avian flu would be a cause of comp claims from health care workers. He noted that if a major epidemic were to hit the United States, the number of comp claims would be "potentially millions."
On another front, he said statistics show that workers with limited English and education face a high risk of injury. Latinos, he said, are 60 percent more likely to be killed on the job than other workers.
Communication errors lead to occupational injuries and death, Mr. Hartwig explained, adding that with 35.13 million people between the ages of 18 and 64–9.68 percent of the U.S. population–who don't speak English at home, language barriers on the job are a "powder keg for injury in the workplace."
Mr. Hartwig also spoke, as he has in the past, of the impact of Iraq war veterans returning to the job. He said that 40 percent of the troops serving in that theatre are National Guard or reservists who will be returning to the workplace.
The vast majority will reintegrate without problem, he said, but currently 30 percent of all returning troops are exhibiting some form of mental health problems.
In addition, many have undiagnosed injuries including traumatic brain injuries resulting from exposure to the concussion of improvised explosive devices.
Other factors that could lead to comp injury severity or frequency include post traumatic stress disorder, as well as related depression, sleep deprivation, substance abuse and social maladjustment.
He suggested returning vets need monitoring in stressful jobs, especially those involving heavy equipment and driving.
Ms. Tomlin said the metal powder beryllium, which is used in dental labs and in products such as televisions, x-rays, mirrors, springs, calculators and computers, could impact 10,000 employer locations and 48,000 employees.
Another injury causation factor she mentioned was the stress to hotel housekeepers who must change 500 pounds of linen a day on king-sized beds. Such workers, she said, face a disability injury rate 51 percent higher than for other service sector workers.
Ms. Tomlin also mentioned the danger of chronic, disabling and sometimes fatal injury from silica dust–a substance that at least 1.7 million workers are exposed to.
Bed bugs, she said, are a hazard that can injure workers in hotels, theatres, dormitories and apartments, and can cause skin swellings, irritation and itching that may lead to infection and "cause anxiety and mental anguish."
In the unknown comp injury category, Ms. Tomlin placed the 25,000 workers currently laboring in the field of nanotechnology, the manufacture of items with matter the size of a billionth of a meter.
She noted that at this point it is undetermined what the effects might be from exposures in that industry.
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