Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I compare my firm's injury and illness experience to others?
2. I am a safety specialist interested in the types of injuries and illnesses that are occurring in my industry. I would like to know which employees are most likely to be injured, and what events are causing most of the injuries and illnesses. Do you have data that can help me?
3. What information do the survey data provide about workers who are injured?
4. What information do the survey data provide about the injuries that have occurred?
5. What information do the survey data provide about injury and illness severity?
6. Who uses these data?

1) How can I compare my firm's injury and illness experience to others?

Incidence rates by industry, by establishment size, and for many different case types are available from BLS. Using incidence rates allows a firm to evaluate its injury and illness experience and compare its experience to other firms doing the same type of work and of the same employment size group. A guide that describes how to compute your firm's incidence rate is available.

2) I am a safety specialist interested in the types of injuries and illnesses that are occurring in my industry. I would like to know which employees are most likely to be injured, and what events are causing most of the injuries and illnesses. Do you have data that can help me?

Yes. Both the case and demographic data from the survey of occupational injuries and illnesses and the fatality data available from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries provide this information. Access to these data is provided from the Data section of our Safety and Health Statistics home page.

3) What information do the survey data provide about workers who are injured?

The age, sex, occupation, race, and length of service with employer are the attributes of the worker collected for days away from work cases.  For the Nation and for participating States, distributions of days away from work cases by the various categories comprising each worker characteristic can be developed. From those distributions, important worker groups can be identified and separate injury and illness profiles developed. For example, separate profiles for women, older workers, and nursing occupations can be developed.

One analytical approach to identifying relatively hazardous jobs will be to compare a job's share of total employment to its share of total days away from work cases. This employment-injury comparison also can be useful at the State level, although usually at a higher level of occupational aggregation. The Bureau's annual bulletin Geographic Profiles provides figures on women employed in farming, forestry, and fishery occupations which can be compared to OSH State data for the same workers. Access to these data is provided from the Data section of our Safety and Health Statistics home page.

4) What information do the survey data provide about the injuries that have occurred?

Physical condition (nature), part of the body affected, source, and event/exposure will be the principal case characteristics gleaned from employers' descriptions about the circumstances surrounding the incidents.  The principal case characteristics and their categories can be presented in separate tabulations for the Nation and for participating States.

Frequency distributions and incidence rates for most case characteristic categories can be generated. These incidence rates tell us, for example, how frequently disabling falls occur in the construction industry of various States. With this information, a State with a relatively high rate of such falls might devote more resources to the study of how employers and employees are dealing with this particular hazard and offer advice on working under adverse weather conditions or the use of safety gear. Access to these data is provided from the Data section of our Safety and Health Statistics home page.

5) What information do the survey data provide about injury and illness severity?

The number of workdays lost and restricted is collected for individual cases involving days away from work. The severity of various worker and case characteristic categories, such as back injuries and wrist/hand disorders, can be compared. The survey is unique in collecting information on workdays lost and restricted for individual cases. This improves on the BLS annual survey's collection of this information for individual establishments (summary data). State workers' compensation reports do not contain this type of information on recuperation time.

Measures of recuperation time include the median number of lost workdays for various worker and case characteristics categories, and distribution of workdays lost and restricted for the aforementioned categories. The median helps to identify groups of workers and types of incidents associated with relatively long recuperation periods; the distribution helps focus in on those cases involving comparatively large numbers of workdays lost and restricted, such as 30 workdays or more.

Both measures are useful to employers and others in setting their priorities for preventing injuries and illnesses. Access to these data is provided from the Data section of our Safety and Health Statistics home page.

6) Who uses these data?

Employers and employees, policymakers, safety standards writers, safety inspectors, health and safety consultants, and researchers are some of the most frequent users of survey data.

Employers and employees need definitive statistics on what kinds of serious injuries and illnesses occur to others whose work and workforce size are similar to theirs. BLS Safety and Health data permit employers to learn about the circumstances surrounding those incidents so that they can disarm potential hazards where they work.

Policymakers need to know how the safety and health of workers in their State compares to workers in other States doing comparable work. The survey helps these managers determine the additional need for State safety and health programs.

Safety standards writers need to know the factors surrounding injuries and illnesses that their standards were meant to prevent. Do those standards need revision, or just better enforcement? Are new standards needed for uncovered incidents? The survey supplemented by special studies can help answer important questions of this type.

Safety inspectors need to know how best to allocate their time among and within establishments. By targeting where injuries and illnesses most frequently occur and their characteristics, survey data help in selecting which firms to visit and what hazards to look for. These visits are also opportunities for inspector and employer to consult on ways to eliminate work hazards.

Safety and health consultants need to understand job hazards fully to develop effective training packages and educational materials for employers and their employees. The survey collects information on work activity that will help consultants piece together what precipitated an accident or exposure. Special studies of work hazards can provide additional assistance.

Researchers need to direct their limited resources at widespread problems, such as the proper manual lifting techniques and the best designs for tools and safety gear. They find survey data useful in focusing on those work hazards.

Last Modified Date: October 16, 2001

URL: http://www.bls.gov/IIF
Nonfatal summary information: (202) 691-6179
Nonfatal case and demographic information: (202) 691-6170
Fatality information: (202) 691-6175
Fax: (202) 691-6196
Fatalities questions: cfoistaff@bls.gov
Nonfatal injuries and illnesses questions: oshstaff@bls.gov