Fatal work injuries: results from the 1992 national census (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, Oct. 1993

Fatal work injuries: results from the 1992 national census

Guy Toscano and Janice Windau

During 1992, slightly more than 6,000 workers lost their lives because of injuries incurred on the job, according to information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics first nationwide Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. This amounts to an average of nearly 17 workplace deaths each day of the year. Tragically, some of these deaths might have been avoided if workers and employers had known more about their risks associated with the jobs.

The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries helps fill this information gap.The census counts and verifies all fatal work injuries, providing information on how the injury occurred and certain characteristics of the fatally injured person (for example, age, gender, and race). For the first time, the 1992 census covered the 50 States and the District of Columbia. (In 1991, only 32 States and New York City were covered.)

Some major findings from the 1992 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries:

men, the elderly (aged 65 and older), workers in farming and transportation-related occupations, and workers in agriculture, mining, and construction industries appear to have a higher risk of workplace fatalities relative to their share of employment;
highway vehicle accidents were the leading fatal event for male workers, while on-the-job homicides were the leading fatal event for female workers;
the average age of fatally injured workers was 42 years;
whites accounted for 83 percent of the workers fatally injured; blacks, for 10 percent; and
the self-employed and family members working in family businesses accounted for 20 percent of the workplace fatalities, although they represented only 9 percent of the total employed.

This excerpt is from an article published in the October 1993 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

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Related BLS programs
Safety and Health Statistics

Related Monthly Labor Review articles
Self-employed individuals fatally injured at work. August 1995.
Changing character of fatal work injuries, The. October 1994.
Fatal work injuries: census for 31 States. September 1992.

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