Workplace injury and illness underestimated

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A comparison study suggests that federal figures miss around two-thirds of occupational health problems.
It's important to have an accurate picture of the various problems - injuries and illnesses - that affect people in the workplace. For this helps in the planning of public health policy. A team at Michigan State University used four databases to identify work-related injury and illness occuring in the state from 1999 through to 2001.

They matched the data with that from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. This showed nearly 80,000 occupational injuries and illnesses recorded by the databases and just over 30,000 by the BLS. Thus, nearly two thirds of occupational health problems are not recorded in federal statistics. According to BLS statistics, the rate of workplace health problems is one in 15, whereas the local statistics say it is one in five. The reason for the under-reporting might be that self-employed workers and Government workers are not included in the BLS database. Also, employers and employees alike may not be motivated to list health problems. It might be better, say the researchers, to use a census-based rather than a sampling approach to collect more accurate statistics.

Source
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine April 2006

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