Pennsylvania Workplace Fatalities, 2006 (PDF)

Fatal work injuries totaled 240 in 2006 for Pennsylvania, an increase of 7 percent from the revised total of 224 recorded in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Regional Commissioner Sheila Watkins noted that this year’s count was the highest since 1997 when 259 job-related fatalities were reported. (See chart A.) The most frequent types of workplace fatalities in 2006 were highway crashes (49), falls to a lower level (31), being struck by objects (30), and homicides (27); these four types of events¹ accounted for 57 percent of the workplace fatalities in the Commonwealth.

Chart A. Total workplace fatalities in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1992-2006

1 Total fatalities include a single, catastrophic airplane crash that claimed the lives of 101 persons in work status.
2 Totals for 2001 exclude fatalities from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
3  The BLS news release issued October 16, 2006, reported a total of 223 fatal work injuries for calendar year 2005 in Pennsylvania.  Since then, an additional job-related fatality was identified, bringing Pennsylvania's total job-related fatality count for 2005 to 224.

Highway crashes led all events as the most frequent type of on-the-job fatalities for both the nation and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The number of fatal work injuries from highway crashes in Pennsylvania decreased from 60 in 2005 to 49 in 2006. (See table A.) Work-related deaths from highway crashes accounted for 20 percent of Pennsylvania’s and 23 percent of the United States’ total in 2006.

The 31 fatalities resulting from falls to a lower level in Pennsylvania in 2006 was the highest level recorded since 1999 when an identical number was reported. Fatal work injuries from falls to a lower level accounted for 13 percent of both the Commonwealth’s and the United States’ fatal occupational injuries total in 2006.
Fatalities resulting from being struck by objects in Pennsylvania increased from 21 in 2005 to 30 in 2006 and accounted for 13 percent of the work-related deaths in the Commonwealth. Nationally, this event accounted for 10 percent of the total.

The number of work-related homicides in 2006 in Pennsylvania changed little over the year, from 28 in 2005 to 27 in 2006. Homicides accounted for 11 percent of fatal work injuries in Pennsylvania and 9 percent of work-related fatalities in the nation in 2006.

Other frequent events leading to workplace fatalities in the Commonwealth in 2006 were pedestrian incidents (17), nonhighway incidents (15), being caught in or compressed by equipment or objects (12), and exposure to caustic, noxious, or allergenic substances (10). (See table 1.) The number of work-related fatalities due to pedestrian incidents changed little, from 18 in 2005 to 17 in 2006. Over the year, fatalities from nonhighway incidents were down from 21 in 2005 to 15 one year later, while the number of on-the-job fatalities resulting from being caught in or compressed by equipment or objects increased from 7 in 2005 to 12 in 2006. The number of work-related deaths due to exposure to caustic, noxious, or allergenic substances totaled 5 in 2005 and 10 in 2006, reaching its highest level since 1994, when 12 fatalities were recorded. All together, these four events were responsible for 23 percent of all fatal work injuries in Pennsylvania in 2006.

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 2006 count of 1,329 fatal highway crashes was the lowest annual 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 fatal work injuries in Pennsylvania

• Men accounted for 93 percent (222) of the work-related fatalities in the Commonwealth. Transportation incidents, which include highway, nonhighway, pedestrian, air, water, and rail fatalities, accounted for over one-third of these deaths. Contact with objects and equipment made up 20 percent of the fatal injuries to men, while assaults and violent acts and falls accounted for 18 and 16 percent, respectively. Eighteen women were fatally injured on the job, mainly due to transportation incidents, which accounted for two-thirds of the total. (See table 2.)
• Eighty-two percent of those who died from a workplace injury in Pennsylvania were white, non-Hispanic (196); 8 percent were black, non-Hispanic (19); 6 percent were Hispanic or Latino (14); and 4 percent were Asian (9). Transportation incidents were the most frequent type of fatality for white, non-Hispanic workers. Among non-Hispanic blacks, Hispanic or Latino workers, and Asians, the most frequent fatal event was assaults and violent acts. (See table 2.)
• Workers 25-54 years old--the prime working age group--made up 67 percent or 160 of the Commonwealth’s work-related fatalities in 2006; at the national level, 64 percent of worker deaths belonged to this age group. (See table 2.)
• Seventy-seven percent of workers killed on the job worked for wages and salaries, the rest were self-employed. The leading cause of death for both wage and salary and self-employed workers was transportation incidents. (See table 2.)
• Two industry sectors made up 40 percent of the workplace fatalities in the Commonwealth--construction recorded 50 deaths and transportation and warehousing, 47. Falls accounted for the largest number of fatal occupational injuries in construction, while transportation incidents were the most frequent event in the transportation and warehousing sector. (See table 3.)
• Workers in the transportation and material moving occupations had the highest number of workplace fatalities at 85, followed by those in the construction and extraction occupations with 46; combined, these two occupational groups accounted for 55 percent of all fatal work injuries in Pennsylvania. Transportation incidents were the most frequent type of fatal injuries in the transportation and material moving occupations, while in the construction and extraction occupations, falls was the most frequent event. (See table 4.)
  
• Among the Commonwealth’s metropolitan areas, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md., registered the highest number of work-related fatalities at 89, followed by Pittsburgh, Pa., at 39. (See chart 1.)

Additional Census of Fatal Occupational Injuriesdata are available on the BLS Internet site at http://www.bls.gov/iif/. Data can be accessed in two ways, through Create Customized Tables, which allows quick access to particular items, or via the special request FTP service, which allows access to an extensive collection of flat text files. For personal assistance or further information on the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries program, as well as other Bureau programs, contact the Mid-Atlantic Information Office at 215-597-3282 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. Information on the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries and other programs and surveys are available on our Web site at http://www.bls.gov/ro3/.

Technical Notes

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 Pennsylvania Department of Health for their 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.