Back to Basics is a weekly feature that highlights important but possibly overlooked information that any EHS professional should know. This week, we examine how workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities are tracked by the federal government.
The Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) collect and disseminate data on private sector workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. OSHA has developed and implemented electronic data submission systems, enabling it to release facility- or worksite-specific injury and illness information publicly.
The BLS produces two aggregate data products: the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII), which summarizes and characterizes nonfatal injuries and illnesses, and the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), which covers fatal workplace injuries. The CFOI doesn’t include fatal occupational illnesses.
The SOII’s data categories include the total number and rate of injuries and illnesses, injuries alone, and respiratory illnesses by industry sector. The CFOI’s data is broken down by worker characteristics (age, ethnicity, and sex), industry, and occupation.
OSHA uses employer-supplied data to target its enforcement activities, often focusing on an establishment’s recordable injury rates. Electronic submission has allowed OSHA to release establishment-level information on injuries and illnesses.
OSHA recently released detailed case data collected through its Injury Tracking Application for calendar year 2023. The public, including competitors, customers, employees and prospective employees, investors, journalists, and labor union organizers, can now view establishment-level injury and illness summary and incident data submitted by employers.
Incident details come from OSHA Forms 300 and 301 that were collected in 2023 from approximately 90,000 establishments and covered over 883,000 injury and illness cases.
The detailed case data includes the company name; employer identification number (EIN); street address with city, state, and ZIP code; the employer’s North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code; the type of incident; incident outcome; and any resulting days away from work (DAFW), as well as descriptions of incidents, injuries, and illnesses.
Workers’ personal information, including names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, birth dates, and addresses, has been redacted using artificial intelligence and human review.
Along with the detailed case data, OSHA released a summary report with tables of injury/illness case characteristics, top occupational groups reporting injuries and illnesses, and a breakdown of injury and illness case types by industrial sector for 2023.
The top industry sectors reporting injuries and illnesses were healthcare and social assistance, manufacturing, and transportation and warehousing. The top occupational groups reporting injuries and illnesses are a mix of transportation and healthcare occupations: laborers and freight, stock, and material movers (warehouse and distribution center); stockers and order fillers; registered nurses; nursing assistants; couriers and messengers; and heavy/tractor-trailer truck drivers.
BLS fatal, nonfatal injury reports
In November, the BLS released its annual SOII, collecting all nonfatal injuries and illnesses from 2023. According to the BLS, injuries and illnesses declined from 2022 levels. Private sector employers reported 2.6 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses—a decrease of 8.4% from 2022.
The decrease was driven by a 56.6% drop in workplace illnesses to 200,100 cases in 2023—the lowest number since 2019, reflecting a 72.6% decrease in respiratory illness cases, which were down to 100,200 cases in 2023.
The rate of respiratory illness in the healthcare and social assistance sector decreased to 44.1 cases per 10,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers in 2023—down from 134.8 in 2022. The rate of respiratory illnesses also went down in the retail trade, dropping to 9.1 cases per 10,000 FTE workers—down from 67.3 in 2022.
According to the BLS, the rate of total recordable cases (TRCs) in private industry was 2.4 cases per 100 FTE workers in 2023—down from 2.7 in 2022. The total recordable injuries and illnesses for healthcare and social assistance decreased to 562,500 cases in 2023—down from 665,300 in 2022.
Other highlights from the 2023 SOII included the following:
- Nonfatal injuries and illnesses involving DAFW in 2023 were 20.1% lower than in 2022.
- The rate of cases involving DAFW, job restriction, or transfer (DART) was 0.6 cases per 100 FTE workers.
- Cases in manufacturing also declined in 2023 to 355,800, down from 396,800 cases in 2022, and cases in the retail trade fell by 68,800 from 2022 to 353,900 in 2023.
- Total injury cases in private industry (2,368,900) were essentially unchanged from 2022.
- Injuries decreased in two sectors in 2023. Injury cases in manufacturing decreased by 21,400 cases to 326,400 in 2023, and injuries in the wholesale trade fell by 11,900 to 127,000 cases.
- Injuries in healthcare and social assistance increased by 27,800 cases to 471,600 in 2023.
In December, the BLS released its CFOI for 2023, which showed a 3.7% decrease in fatal workplace injuries. There were 5,283 fatal work injuries in 2023, and the fatal work injury rate was 3.5 fatalities per 100,000 FTE workers, which is down from 3.7 in 2022.
Key findings in the 2023 report included:
- Transportation incidents were the most frequent type of fatal event, accounting for 36.8% (1,942) of all occupational fatalities.
- Fatalities due to violent acts totaled 740 in 2023. Homicides (458) accounted for 61.9% of violent acts and 8.7% of all work-related fatalities.
- Opioids were the primary source of 162 fatalities and a contributor to an additional 144 deaths involving multiple drugs.
- The fatal injury count and rate for Black or African-American workers decreased from 2022 to 2023. The fatality count dropped 10.2% from 734 in 2022 to 659 in 2023, and the rate fell from 4.2 to 3.6 cases per 100,000 FTE workers.
- The fatal injury rate for Hispanic or Latino workers decreased from 2022 to 2023—down from 4.6 to 4.4 cases per 100,000 FTE workers.
2020-2022: Fall, then rise of injuries, fatalities
The COVID-19 pandemic and the years following the outbreak saw fatal and nonfatal injuries fall and then rise again.
In 2021, the BLS reported a 5.7% decrease in nonfatal injuries in 2020. Private sector employers reported 2.1 million nonfatal injuries in 2020—down from 2.7 million in 2019. However, the number of illnesses more than quadrupled to 544,600 cases—up from 127,200 cases in 2019. Work-related cases of COVID-19 in 2020 were reported as “other diseases due to viruses, not elsewhere classified.”
Nursing assistants had the highest number of cases involving DAFW in 2020 at 96,480, an increase of 68,890 cases (249.7%) from 2019. Registered nurses’ DAFW cases increased by 58,590 (290.8%) to 78,740.
The BLS also reported a 10.7% decrease in fatal workplace injuries in 2020—down from 5,333 in 2019 to 4,764.
The BLS also reported a decline in nonfatal injuries and illnesses in 2021—down 1.8% from 2020. The decrease included a drop in illness cases, with private industry employers reporting 365,200 nonfatal illnesses in 2021—down from 544,600 in 2020, which is a drop of 32.9%.
The decline in workplace illnesses was driven by a 37.1% decrease in employer-reported respiratory illness cases in 2021 at 269,600, down from 428,700 in 2020.
Despite the decline in nonfatal injuries and illnesses, the BLS reported a rise in the rate of fatal workplace injuries in 2021 from the rate in 2020 and the pre-pandemic rate in 2019. There were 5,190 fatal work injuries in 2021—an 8.9% increase from 4,764 in 2020. The rate of fatal workplace injuries in 2021 rose to 3.6 fatalities per 100,000 FTE workers—up from 3.4 in 2020 and 3.5 in 2019. 2021’s fatal occupational injury rate was the highest annual rate since 2016.
The bureau reported a rise in nonfatal injuries and illnesses in 2022, as well as an increase in fatal occupational injuries.
Nonfatal injuries and illnesses were up 7.5% in 2022 from 2021. The increase in 2022 was driven by the rise in injuries, which were up 4.5% to 2.3 million cases, and illnesses, which were up 26.1% to 460,700 cases. While respiratory illnesses had decreased in 2021, they were up 35.4% in 2022, rising to 365,000 cases.
Fatal work-related injuries increased by 5.7% in 2022, according to the BLS. The fatal work injury rate was 3.7 fatalities per 100,000 in 2022—up from 3.6 per 100,000 in 2021. The fatality rates for African-American and Hispanic workers were even higher. The fatal injury rate for Black or African-American workers rose from 4.0 to 4.2 and from 4.5 to 4.6 per 100,000 for Hispanic or Latino workers.
NSC’s look behind OSHA’s ‘top 10’
At the National Safety Council’s (NSC) Safety Congress & Exposition each fall, OSHA unveils a “top 10” list of its most frequently cited safety and health standards. The latest list includes five construction industry standards (fall protection general requirements, ladders, fall protection training requirements, scaffolding, and eye and face protective equipment) and five general industry regulations (hazard communication, respiratory protection, lockout/tagout (control of hazardous energy), powered industrial trucks, and machine guarding).
The NSC took a deep dive into OSHA’s top 10 list, comparing the list with the BLS’s fatal and nonfatal injury and illness data. Causes behind reported injuries, illnesses, fatalities, and top 10 violations include:
- Falls, which resulted in 865 deaths in 2022.
- Respiratory illnesses. Over 22,100 respiratory illness cases were reported in manufacturing and another 2,000 in construction in 2022.
- Hazardous energy. Workers caught in running equipment or machinery during maintenance or cleaning led to 54 deaths in 2022 and nearly 18,000 DART cases from 2021 to 2022. Exposure to electricity led to 145 deaths in 2022 and almost 4,000 DART cases from 2021 to 2022.
- Forklift, order picker, and powered platform trucks were the primary sources of 73 deaths in 2022 and almost 25,000 DART cases from 2021 to 2022.
- Eye and face injuries accounted for nearly 90,000 DART cases from 2021 to 2022.
- Due to a lack of machine guarding, workers getting caught in running equipment or machinery during regular operations resulted in 35 deaths in 2022 and almost 27,000 DART cases from 2021 to 2022.
Beyond OSHA’s top 10, transportation incidents were the top cause of death across industries in the United States, leading to nearly 2,100 deaths. Those included almost 1,400 roadway incidents involving motorized land vehicles and 325 pedestrian-vehicle interactions.
While there’s no federal workplace violence prevention standard, workplace violence led to 865 fatalities in 2022, including 791 caused by intentional injury by a person. No federal ergonomics standard exists, but overexertion and “bodily reactions” resulted in more than 1 million DART events from 2021 to 2022.
The workplace injury, illness, and fatality data the BLS and OSHA analyze begins to tell a story about health and safety among industries and occupations. OSHA’s detailed case data tells more specific stories about individual workplaces.