Bureau of Labor Statistics
General Information: (312) 353-1880 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Media Contact: Paul LaPorte Tuesday, October 30, 2007
(312) 353-1138
http://www.bls.gov/ro5 Data Tables WISCONSIN WORKPLACE FATALITIES, 2006 Fatal work injuries in Wisconsin totaled 91 for 2006, a decrease of 27 percent from 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Regional Commissioner Jay A. Mousa noted that the number of fatalities in 2006 equaled the count in 2002 as the lowest annual total in Wisconsin since the Bureau began tracking workplace fatalities in 1992. The most frequent types of fatal workplace events in the State were workers being struck by an object (18), highway crashes (17), and falls to a lower level (13). Taken together, these three events 1/ accounted for more than half of the work-related fatalities in Wisconsin in 2006. Workers being struck by objects resulted in more on-the-job fatalities than any other event in Wisconsin in 2006. The 18 cases in 2006 were a series high for this fatal work injury event since the inception of the census in 1992. (See table A.) Being struck by an object accounted for 20 percent of the workplace fatalities in Wisconsin in 2006 and 10 percent in the nation. The 17 on-the-job fatalities in the State resulting from highway incidents was the lowest single-year total for the category yet recorded by the fatality census. (Highway incidents, referred to here as highway crashes, include non-collision incidents as well). Work-related deaths from highway crashes made up 19 percent of the total fatalities in Wisconsin; only one year earlier, there had been 33 crashes accounting for 26 percent of the State's fatality count. Nationally, 23 percent of workplace deaths resulted from highway crashes, making it the most frequent fatal event. Thirteen workers in Wisconsin were fatally injured by falling to a lower level in 2006, down 7 cases over the year. Falls to a lower level was the primary cause of 14 percent of the workplace fatalities in Wisconsin and 13 percent nationally. Other events leading to work-related fatal injuries in Wisconsin included pedestrians or nonpassengers being struck by vehicles or mobile equipment (10), workers caught in or compressed by equipment or objects (6), and homicides (5). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1/ Fatal events are categorized into several major groupings including transportation incidents, assaults and violent acts, and falls. These major groups are further broken down into more detailed groups. For example, transportation incidents includes highway incidents and aircraft incidents; assaults and violent acts includes homicides and suicides; and falls includes falls to a lower level (as from a roof or ladder) and falls on the same level (as from grease on a floor or ice on a sidewalk). Table A. Fatal occupational injuries in Wisconsin by selected event groups, 1992-2006 -------------------------------------------------------------- | Total | Struck | Highway | Falls to | fatali-| by object | crashes | lower level Year | ties |---------------------------------------------- | |Number|Percent|Number|Percent|Number|Percent -------------------------------------------------------------- 1992 135 16 12 21 16 7 5 1993 138 8 6 22 16 8 6 1994 109 14 13 26 24 10 9 1995 117 6 5 29 25 5 4 1996 108 7 6 27 25 14 13 1997 114 6 5 25 22 14 12 1998 97 6 6 29 30 6 6 1999 105 13 12 34 32 8 8 2000 107 8 7 27 25 7 7 2001 110 9 8 35 32 12 11 2002 91 7 8 24 26 7 8 2003 103 17 17 22 21 16 16 2004 94 12 13 20 21 10 11 2005 125 16 13 33 26 20 16 2006 91 18 20 17 19 13 14 ------------------------------------------------------------- Table B. Fatal occupational injuries in the United States by selected event groups, 1992-2006 -------------------------------------------------------------- | Total | Highway | Falls to | Struck | fatali-| crashes | lower level | by object Year | ties |---------------------------------------------- | |Number|Percent|Number|Percent|Number|Percent -------------------------------------------------------------- 1992 6,217 1,158 19 507 8 557 9 1993 6,331 1,242 20 534 8 565 9 1994 6,632 1,343 20 580 9 591 9 1995 6,275 1,346 21 578 9 547 9 1996 6,202 1,346 22 610 10 582 9 1997 6,238 1,393 22 653 10 579 9 1998 6,055 1,442 24 625 10 520 9 1999 6,054 1,496 25 634 10 585 10 2000 5,920 1,365 23 659 11 571 10 2001 1/ 5,915 1,409 24 700 12 553 9 2002 5,534 1,373 25 638 12 505 9 2003 5,575 1,353 24 604 11 531 10 2004 5,764 1,398 24 738 13 602 10 2005 2/ 5,734 1,437 25 664 12 607 11 2006 5,703 1,329 23 728 13 583 10 -------------------------------------------------------------- 1/ Totals for 2001 exclude fatalities due to the events of September 11, 2001 which claimed the lives of 2,886 persons in work status. 2/ The BLS news release issued August 10, 2006, reported a total of 5,702 fatal work injuries for calendar year 2005. Since then, an additional 32 job-related fatalities were identified, bringing the total job-related fatality count for 2005 to 5,734. Nationwide, a total of 5,703 fatal work injuries were reported in 2006, down slightly from the revised total of 5,734 fatal work injuries recorded in 2005. The count for 2006 was the third lowest annual total recorded by the fatality census, which has been conducted yearly since 1992. (See table B.) The 1,329 fatal highway crashes in 2006 was the lowest annual count total since 1993. Highway crashes in 2006 accounted for nearly one out of every four fatal work injuries and continued to lead all other events in the frequency of on-the-job fatalities. Fatal work injuries involving falls to a lower level increased 10 percent in 2006 after a sharp decrease in 2005. The 2006 total of 728 fatal falls to a lower level was the second highest since the fatality census began. The number of workers who were fatally injured from being struck by objects was lower in 2006, after increasing for the last three years. The 583 fatalities resulting from being struck by objects in 2006 represented a 4-percent decline from the 2005 total. Workplace homicides decreased 9 percent to 516 in 2006, the lowest annual total ever reported by the fatality census. Overall, workplace homicides have decreased more than 50 percent from the series high in 1994. Key characteristics of workplace fatalities in Wisconsin in 2006: - Men accounted for 95 percent of the work-related fatalities in the State with 86 deaths. Transportation incidents, which include highway, nonhighway, pedestrian, air, water, and rail, accounted for slightly more than one-third of these fatal injuries. Among women, four of the five deaths resulted from transportation incidents. - Ninety-five percent, or 86, of those who died from a workplace injury were white non-Hispanics. - Workers 25-54 years old-the prime working age group-accounted for 53 percent of the State's work-related fatalities in 2006; 36 percent were 55 years or older. Nationally, workers 55 and over made up 27 percent of those fatally injured on the job. - Wage and salary workers represented 71 percent of Wisconsin's workplace fatalities in 2006; the rest were self-employed. - The agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting industry sector had the largest number of fatalities with 22, followed by construction (14), and transportation and warehousing (10). Contact with objects and equipment was the most frequent fatal event in agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting, accounting for half of the industry's fatal injuries. In construction, falls were responsible for half of the industry's on-the-job fatalities. In transportation and warehousing, transportation incidents accounted for eight of the ten fatal events. - Workers in the transportation and material moving occupational group suffered 21 work-related fatalities, the highest in the State. The management occupational group followed closely with 19 workplace deaths, 11 of which were managers of farms and ranches. Thirteen workers in construction and extraction jobs lost their lives on the job in 2006. Additional data available Additional Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries data are available from the BLS Web site at www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm. Data tables for 2006 are available for all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and selected metropolitan areas. Detailed data may be accessed through the online query system located at http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=fi. For additional information or assistance, please contact the Midwest Information Office in Chicago at (312) 353-1880, menu option 0. TECHNICAL NOTE Background of the program The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, part of the BLS occupational safety and health statistics program, compiles a count of all fatal work injuries occurring in the U.S. in each calendar year. The program uses diverse State and Federal data sources to identify, verify, and describe fatal work injuries. Information about each workplace fatality (industry, occupation, and other worker characteristics; equipment being used; and circumstances of the event) is obtained by cross-referencing source documents, such as death certificates, workers' compensation records, news accounts, and reports to Federal and State agencies. This method assures counts are as complete and accurate as possible. Definitions For a fatality to be included in the census, the decedent must have been employed (that is working for pay, compensation, or profit) at the time of the event, engaged in a legal work activity, or present at the site of the incident as a requirement of his or her job. Fatalities to volunteer and unpaid family workers who perform the same duties and functions as paid workers are also included in the counts. These criteria are generally broader than those used by Federal and State agencies administering specific laws and regulations. (Fatalities that occur during a person's normal commute to or from work are excluded from the census counts.) Data presented in this release include deaths occurring in 2006 that resulted from traumatic occupational injuries. An injury is defined as any wound or damage to the body resulting from acute exposure to energy, such as heat, electricity, or impact from a crash or fall, or from the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen caused by a specific event or incident within a single workday or shift. Included are open wounds, intracranial and internal injuries, heatstroke, hypothermia, asphyxiation, acute poisonings resulting from short-term exposures limited to the worker's shift, suicides and homicides, and work injuries listed as underlying or contributory causes of death. Information on work-related fatal illnesses is not reported in the BLS census and is excluded from the attached tables because the latency period of many occupational illnesses and the difficulty of linking illnesses to work exposures make identification of a universe problematic. Measurement techniques and limitations Data for the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries are compiled from various Federal, State, and local administrative sources-including death certificates, workers' compensation reports and claims, reports to various regulatory agencies, medical examiner reports, and police reports-as well as news and other non- governmental reports. Diverse sources are used because studies have shown that no single source captures all job-related fatalities. Source documents are matched so that each fatality is counted only once. To ensure that a fatality occurred while the decedent was at work, information is verified from two or more independent source documents or from a source document and a follow-up questionnaire. Approximately 30 data elements are collected, coded, and tabulated, including information about the worker, the fatal incident, and the machinery or equipment involved. Federal/State agency coverage The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries includes data for all fatal work injuries, whether the decedent was working in a job covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or other Federal or State agencies or was outside the scope of regulatory coverage. Thus, any comparison between the BLS fatality census counts and those released by other agencies should take into account the different coverage requirements and definitions being used by each agency. Several Federal and State agencies have jurisdiction over workplace safety and health. OSHA and affiliated agencies in States with approved safety programs cover the largest portion of the nation's workers. However, injuries and illnesses occurring in certain industries or activities, such as coal, metal, and nonmetal mining and highway, water, rail, and air transportation, are excluded from OSHA coverage because they are covered by other Federal agencies, such as the Mine Safety and Health Administration and various agencies within the Department of Transportation. Fatalities occurring among several other groups of workers are generally not covered by any Federal or State agencies. These groups include self-employed and unpaid family workers, which accounted for about 18 percent of the fatalities; laborers on small farms, accounting for about 1 percent of the fatalities; and State and local government employees in States without OSHA-approved safety programs, which accounted for about 4 percent. (Approximately one-half of the States have approved OSHA safety programs, which cover State and local government employees.) Acknowledgments BLS thanks the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene for its efforts in collecting accurate, comprehensive, and useful data on fatal work injuries. BLS also appreciates the efforts of all federal, State, local, and private sector agencies that submitted source documents used to identify fatal work injuries. Among these agencies are the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; the National Transportation Safety Board; the U.S. Coast Guard; the Mine Safety and Health Administration; the Employment Standards Administration (Federal Employees' Compensation and Longshore and Harbor Workers' divisions); the Department of Energy; State vital statistics registrars, coroners, and medical examiners; State departments of health, labor and industries and workers' compensation agencies; State and local police departments; and State farm bureaus.
Last Modified Date: April 7, 2008
