US Workplace Deaths Decrease

A preliminary total of 4,340 fatal work injuries were recorded in the United States in 2009, down from a final count of 5,214 fatal work injuries in 2008. The 2009 total represents the smallest annual preliminary total since the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program was first conducted in 1992. Based on this preliminary count, the rate of fatal work injury for U.S. workers in 2009 was 3.3 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers, down from a final rate of 3.7 in 2008. Counts and rates are likely to increase with the release of final 2009 CFOI results in April 2011. Over the last 2 years, increases in the published counts based on information received after the publication of preliminary results have averaged 156 fatalities per year or about 3 percent of the revised totals.

Economic factors played a major role in the fatal work injury decrease in 2009. Total hours worked fell by 6 percent in 2009 following a 1 percent decline in 2008, and some industries that have historically accounted for a significant share of fatal work injuries, such as construction, experienced even larger declines in employment or hours worked. In addition, some source documents used by CFOI State partners to identify and verify fatal work injuries were delayed, due at least in part to fiscal constraints at some of the governmental agencies who regularly provide source documentation for the program.

Key preliminary findings of the 2009 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries: 

- Workplace homicides declined 1 percent in 2009, in contrast to an overall decline of 17 percent for all fatal work injuries. The homicide total for 2009 includes the 13 victims of the November shooting at Fort Hood. Workplace suicides were down 10 percent in 2009 from the series high of 263 in 2008.

 - Though wage and salary workers and self-employed workers experienced similar declines in total hours worked in 2009, fatal work injuries among wage and salary workers in 2009 declined by 20 percent while fatal injuries among self-employed workers were down 3 percent. 

- The wholesale trade industry was one of the few major private industry sectors reporting higher numbers of fatal work injuries in 2009. 

- Fatal work injuries in the private construction sector declined by 16 percent in 2009 following the decline of 19 percent in 2008.

- Fatalities among non-Hispanic black or African-American workers were down 24 percent. This worker group also experienced a slightly larger decline in total hours worked than non-Hispanic white or Hispanic workers. 

- The number of fatal workplace injuries in building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations rose 6 percent, one of the few major occupation groups to record an increase in fatal work injuries in 2009.

 - Transportation incidents, which accounted for nearly two-fifths of all the fatal work injuries in 2009, fell 21 percent from the 2,130 fatal work injuries reported in 2008. 

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Comment:

The BLS fatality figures are the fatalities from injuries that occurred at the worksite or shortly thereafter, and do not include occupational illness fatalities, the latter primarily from toxic chemical exposures in the workplace.

Worker deaths from toxic exposures, other work illnesses are conservatively estimated by NIOSH, Steenland, Markowitrz, and other researchers at 50,00 to 60,000 deaths each year, or ten times the number of fatalities from work injuries. It is a disaster of monumental proportions that goes largely unrecorded. The United States has no comprehensive occupational health data collection system.

As we have lagged behind other nations in our lack of a national comprehensive medical and statistical database on occupational illnesses, occupational injuries; we have lagged behind in the research into the causes and consequences of occupational illnesses that would lead to improved diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and ultimately prevention, of occupational toxic exposures and resultant diseases.

Patrice Woeppel, Ed.D.

Author: Depraved Indifference: the Workers' Compensation System

www.patricewoeppel.us