Uninvestigated fatal workplace injuries in the United States

Abstract

Background: Approximately 5000 people are killed by an injury at work every year, but the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) only investigates 25%-35% of these deaths. The aim of this study was to identify industry, geographic, and worker demographic disparities in the proportion of fatal workplace injuries that are investigated by OSHA. Methods: This cross-sectional analysis drew from 2 years of public data (2014-2015) from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries and investigation data from OSHA. Differences by worker age and sex, geographic region, industry, and State Plan-versus Federal Plan-state were examined. Results: Nationally, OSHA investigated about one in four (27.5%) of the 9657 fatal workplace injuries that occurred. Higher odds of uninvestigated fatalities were observed for female workers compared to male workers (odds ratio, 2.35; 95% confidence interval, 1.89, 2.93), for workers over age 65 compared to those aged 18-24 (3.05; 2.44, 3.82), for worker deaths occurring in State Plan states compared to Federal Plan states (1.64; 1.49, 1.79), among other differences. Conclusions: Although some of the disparities could be explained by OSHA jurisdiction restrictions, other areas of potential reform were identified, such as investigating a greater number of workplace violence deaths and increasing focus in industries with a low proportion of investigations but a high number of fatalities, such as transportation and warehousing. Consideration should be given to adapt policies, expand OSHA jurisdiction, and to increase OSHA resources for conducting both fatality investigations and proactive investigations that can identify and abate hazards before a worker is injured.

Occupational tree felling fatalities: 2010–2020

“…OSHA data are limiting in that the records are often missing key information such as gender or race. Further, it has been estimated that OSHA investigates only 25-35% of annual US workplace fatalities30 thus suggesting that actual fatalities from tree felling may be much higher than reported here. The search term we used with the OSHA database ("tree felling") may not have captured additional fatalities related to tree trimming or pruning, or for other related activities such as cutting stumps of trees.…”

Thinking about risk and vulnerability in CSMM

“…There are myriad intersectional factors which contribute to the perception of risk, the actual risks different men face and the way in which certain risks leave groups of men comparatively more vulnerable than others. Men in general do die on average at higher rates from suicide (Cleary, 2012;Garcia, 2016), in direct armed-conflict-related deaths (Ormhaug, Meier, & Hernes, 2009), due to work-related illnesses and accidents (Boggess & Pompeii, 2020) and undiagnosed health complications (Lohan, 2007); they suffer physical violence at higher rates than women, though, it should be added, at the hands of other men (Wojnicka, 2012) and only when excluding sexual violence. Yet we know that trans* men and trans* masculine people are doubly at risk from both 'everyday' and transphobic violence than cis-men.…”

“…For instance even though 'men are more likely to die during conflicts … women die more often of indirect causes after the conflict is over' (Ormhaug et al, 2009, p. 3). Furthermore, women are more likely to die from violence-related workplace deaths in the US (Boggess & Pompeii, 2020), meaning that blunt comparisons of total numbers at risk, even in the workplace, fail to acknowledge the complexity of gendered questions of vulnerability. Most commonly, the idea that men and boys are more likely to be victims of violent crime is used to claim that they are more vulnerable than women and girls whilst interpersonal violence statistics which show men and women reporting roughly similar levels of physical violencethe so-called gender symmetry debateare often used by so-called 'men's rights activists' (MRAs) and more explicitly anti-feminist movements to indicate men's vulnerability (Bjørnholt, 2021, p. 19).…”