Access to Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Case-Level Data for Public Health Purposes

Details

• Personal Author:
  Harrison, Robert ; Sewell CM
• Description:
  Statement of the Problem: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has managed the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program in order to track occupational injury fatalities in the United States since the program's inception in 1992. This program was established because employer reporting of traumatic fatalities administered by BLS was shown to miss 50% of the work-related traumatic fatalities (NRC, 1987). Through the implementation and management of the CFOI program, the BLS has done a commendable job in establishing consistency in tracking work-related injury fatalities in the U.S. and providing annual numbers by industry for each state. The BLS, however, does not routinely make case-level data available to state public health or occupational health epidemiologists for timely public health prevention activities. The BLS CFOI system is a statistical count of workplace injury fatalities by industry and is not administered as a public health tool to identify specific hazards/problems in the workplace and needed interventions to remedy these hazards/problems (e.g., improved roadway design and marking, workplace policies). The system, unlike most health monitoring systems in the U.S., is a federal program and states are contracted by BLS to collect data for this system. The CFOI system does not include cases that do not have a traumatic injury component. Thus, although state CFOI programs may identify occupational illness fatalities (e.g., on-the-job heart attacks, cancers due to occupational exposure), these cases are not included in CFOI datasets. BLS's confidentiality requirements and resultant restrictions have limited the usefulness of the CFOI system. Those state CFOI Programs that collect the data for BLS are also not permitted to share case-level data with other state partners. BLS determines the data that can be released, the format, and prescribes a pre-determined data release schedule that the states must follow. This limited access of data by state partners is enforced by BLS even though most of the state-level data comes from state programs including public health vital statistics, state transportation department police crash reports, county or state coroner or medical investigator reports, and other public sources such as newspaper clippings. Federal and state OSHA programs investigate approximately one third of workplace fatalities that are reported as part of the scope of the CFOI program. Many of the other two thirds of states' occupationally-related fatalities are not investigated. For example, homicides and fatalities among the self-employed are not investigated from an occupational health and safety prevention perspective. The Coast Guard does investigate boat related fatalities and the National Transportation Safety Board investigates airplane and train fatalities. Highway fatalities are investigated by law enforcement, but not from a public health or occupational health prevention perspective. Although BLS CFOI identifies and counts traumatic injury cases that have not been investigated, their inability to share the data related to these deaths means that no agency conducts a health and safety investigation of many of these deaths. A major opportunity for public health intervention is lost because of the lack of access to BLS data. In addition, federal OSHA has an agreement with BLS to review CFOI data, but is not permitted to use the data for enforcement purposes. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Mortality Occupational Health Public Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Fatalities Injuries Mortality Data Public Health Surveillance Traumatic Injuries
• Publisher:
  Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; Georgia ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 8 ; OSHA Region 9 ; Wyoming
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20061568
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, 14-OH-01, 2014 Jul; :1-4
• Email:
  mack.sewell@wyo.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• Performing Organization:
  Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, Atlanta, Georgia
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20110701
• Source Full Name:
  Access to census of fatal occupational injuries case-level data for public health purposes
• End Date:
  20190630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0735e878eec273ea7834c401faa987eff40f69de2d2c04a587b557f5ffbe4f0f8f6614c9708676e5f5e6d95781a338473d30a235014690bcdfd1008e1fdedba3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/225071/cdc_225071_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 171.94 KB ]