The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) recently released the following health and safety statistics:
- At work, there is a fatal injury every 103 minutes and a disabling injury every 8 seconds.
- Work injuries cost Americans $125.1 billion in 1998-that’s equivalent to nearly triple the combined profits reported by the top 5 fortune 500 companies in 1998.
- There were 5,100 workplace fatalities in 1998 due to unintentional injuries.
- A fatal injury occurs every 6 minutes and a disabling injury occurs every 2 seconds.
- For women workers, homicides were the leading cause of workplace injury deaths in 1998.
- In 1998, 3.8 million American workers suffered from disabling injuries on the job.
- The four leading fatal events and exposures are: highway traffic incidents, homicide, falls to a lower level, and being struck by an object.
- The agriculture industry accounted for 780 deaths and 140,000 disabling injuries in 1998.
- Women suffer from 65% of all musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) from jobs such as keyboarding, data entry, cashier work, and scanning.
- Four out of every 10 injuries and illnesses resulting in loss of work time are due to sprains or strains (MSDs), mostly involving the back.
- States that have the largest number of persons employed also reported the largest number of work-related fatalities. California, Texas, and Florida accounted for 25% of the total fatality count.
- The four leading causes of death in the home are falls, solid and liquid poisonings, fires and burns, and suffocation by an ingested object.
- There is a public fatal injury every 26 minutes and a disabling injury every 5 minutes.
