Column Actions

The purpose of this indicator is to provide information for preventive measures regarding occupational accidents.

The frequency rates of fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries provide information on the number of cases of fatal and non-fatal occupational injury per hours worked by the concerned population during the reference period. It is a measure of the risk of having a fatal or a non-fatal occupational injury based on the duration of exposure to adverse work-related factors. The incidence rates of fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries provide information on the number of cases of fatal and non-fatal occupational injury per workers in the reference group during the reference period. It is a measure of the personal likelihood of the workers in the reference group of suffering from work-related injuries.

Labour Department and Social Security Board

Labour Department and Social Security Board

Annual

The fatal occupational injury frequency rate is expressed per 1’000’000 hours worked by the workers in the reference group.

This indicator provides valuable information that could be used to formulate policies and programmes for the prevention of occupational injuries, diseases and deaths. It could also be used to monitor the implementation of these programmes and to signal particular areas of increasing risk such as a particular occupation, industry or location. This indicator may be used for a number of other purposes, such as to identify the occupations and economic activities with the highest risk of occupational injuries; to detect changes in the pattern and occurrence of occupational injuries, so as to monitor improvements in safety and reveal any new areas of risk; to inform employers, employers’ organizations, workers and workers’ organizations of the risks associated with their work and workplaces, so that they can take an active part in their own safety; to evaluate the effectiveness of preventive measures; and to estimate the consequences of occupational injuries, particularly in terms of days lost or costs.

1. Occupational accident: an unexpected and unplanned occurrence, including acts of violence, arising out of or in connection with work which results in one or more workers incurring a personal injury, disease or death. Occupational accidents are to be considered travel, transport or road traffic accidents in which workers are injured and which arise out of or in the course of work; that is, while engaged in an economic activity, or at work, or carrying out the business of the employer.
2. Occupational injury: any personal injury, disease or death resulting from an occupational accident. An occupational injury is different from an occupational disease, which comes as a result of an exposure over a period of time to risk factors linked to the work activity. Diseases are included only in cases where the disease arose as a direct result of an accident. An occupational injury can be fatal or non-fatal (and non-fatal injuries could entail the loss of work days).
3. Fatal occupational injury: an occupational injury leading to death within one year of the day of the occupational accident.
4. Case of occupational injury: the case of one worker incurring one or more occupational injuries as a result of one occupational accident.
5. Workers in the reference group: workers in the reference group refer to the average number of workers in the particular group under consideration and who are covered by the source of the statistics on occupational injuries (for example, those of a specific sex or in a specific economic activity, occupation, region, age group, or any combination of these, or those covered by a particular insurance scheme, accident notification systems, or household or establishment survey).

is by both sex and migrant status. Wherever possible, it would also be useful to have information disaggregated by economic activity and occupation.

The frequency and incidence rates of fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries will be calculated separately, since statistics on fatal injuries tend to come from a different source than those on non-fatal injuries, which would make their sum into total occupational accidents inaccurate.

This indicator is used to measure the frequency rates of fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries and provide information on the number of cases of fatal and non-fatal occupational injury per hours worked by the concerned population during the reference period. This indicator provides a basis for policymaking aimed at encouraging employers, employers’ organizations, workers and workers’ organizations to introduce accident prevention measures.

There may be problems of under reporting of occupational injuries, and proper systems should be put in place to ensure the best reporting and data quality.

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.