1.12 OCCUPATION

PART OF THE PATIENT EMPLOYMENT GROUP (1.12 AND 1.13)*

*The Patient Employment Group includes data elements 1.12 and 1.13. A single iteration of this group is used to report each job held by the patient.

Definition

Description of patient’s current work.

Uses

Routine screening information concerning the patient’s current job activity is used in clinical evaluation and management, and it is needed to assess the patient’s eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits. Data on occupation and industry also are useful for public health surveillance and epidemiologic research. Occupation and industry together serve as a surrogate for patient socioeconomic status.

Discussion

A succinct description of the patient’s work can be used to encode occupation (or job title) and industry. Incorporating information about both occupation and industry is important, because similar occupations confer different health risks depending on the industry. For example, a painter in a shipyard is subject to different exposures than a painter in a residential setting. Occupation, along with industry, is used frequently as an indicator of socioeconomic status. However, its use for this purpose requires linkage between specific occupation groups and socioeconomic status. By comparison, the patient’s educational level is a simple-to- use indicator of socioeconomic status, but occupation and industry are more routinely collected in EDs because of their clinical relevance. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends using the 1990 U.S. Bureau of the Census classification system for coding occupation (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992). NIOSH is developing and evaluating personal computer software to encode text entries for occupation and industry.

Data Type (and Field Length)

CE - coded element (200).

Repetition

Yes; the Patient Employment Group repeats if the patient has more than one job.

Field Values

Component 1 is the occupation code.
Component 2 is the occupation descriptor.
Component 3 is the coding system identifier.
Components 4 - 6 can be used for an alternate code, descriptor, and coding system identifier.

For example, using the U.S. Bureau of the Census Occupation/Industry code (COI):

Component 1 = 434
Component 2 = Bartender
Component 3 = COI

Text data also can be entered without an accompanying code, as follows:

Component 1 = " "
Component 2 = Bartender

Data Standards or Guidelines

1990 Census of Population and Housing: Alphabetical Index of Industries and Occupations (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992) and E1633-96 (ASTM, 1996).

Other References

None.