Creating an Infographic for Occupational Health - Logging in Washington State

BACKGROUND:  Newer routes of communication (social media), favor data that is presented in brief, easy-to-read and sharable formats. This necessitates a change in thinking about how we present occupational health data. At the same time, state budgets are increasingly limited and researchers may not have access to licensed design software or have the budget for dedicated designers. The term “infographic” refers to the visual representation of data, sometimes created by vector graphics software packages. We aim to discuss the Washington State (WA) experience of creating an occupational health infographic using freely available software. In WA, non-mechanized (manual) loggers experience far more injuries and fatalities than those primarily logging by machine (mechanized). The objective of this project was to analyze logging workers’ compensation (WC) data and create a graphical comparison of the burden of injury faced by workers in both industry branches, represent the magnitude of difference, and show how these data relate to indemnity cost and employer insurance premiums. Our intention was to create a document that would be quickly and easily understood by those not in the occupational health community: for example; workers, employers, and policy makers.

METHODS:  Washington State workers’ compensation (WC) compensable claims data for the logging industry (number of fatalities, claims rate, injury type, cost information) were analyzed and used to compare mechanized vs. manual logging in WA. Using Inkscape, an open source vector graphics program, a concise infographic was created from the logging data.  This process involved: finding creative commons licensed photos, importing photos, bitmap tracing, editing paths and objects, and color and shadow effects.

RESULTS:  Manual logging had nearly 10x the number and rate of compensable claims of mechanized logging, and had almost 6x the claim cost. Manual loggers had a higher proportion of “struck by/against” claims (40% of injuries, vs. 18% in mechanized logging), while mechanized loggers experienced more work-related musculoskeletal disorders (27% vs. 19% in manual logging).  The infographic illustrates the magnitude of the burden of work-related injury faced by manual loggers.

CONCLUSIONS:  Manual logging is a dangerous occupation.  The infographic can be used to demonstrate the scope of the issue and the need for injury prevention efforts (such as the new Logger Safety Initiative in WA) to those outside the occupational health research community. While there was a learning curve, free software can be used with available data relatively easily to create clear, simple, shareable infographics for public consumption.