The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has introduced a new online dashboard designed to simplify searching its severe injury report database and tracking workplace injury trends in states under federal OSHA jurisdiction.
Beginning January 1, 2015, OSHA regulations have mandated that employers report all severe workplace injuries such as eye loss, amputations, or in-patient hospitalizations within 24 hours. Entities covered by HIPAA laws are required to follow this mandate as well. Upon receiving a report, OSHA may launch a formal investigation or request additional information based on the situation. While the federal government has been gathering workplace injury data since 2015, it had not been compiled in a structured and accessible format for public use. Now, these reports are collected into a database accessible on OSHA’s website.
The new dashboard enhances the usability of this database by allowing users to filter their searches based on various criteria, including year, state, industry, name of establishment, Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System code, incident type, and the impacted body part. The search results are displayed in graphical formats and are downloadable for further analysis. OSHA has also created a video tutorial to guide users using the new tool.
The database tool shows the following most common causes of severe workplace injuries from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2023:
- 6,689 severe injury events involved being caught in a running equipment or machinery during regular operations
- 5,915 events involved falls from a higher level
- 5,271 events involved being caught in a running equipment or machinery during cleaning or maintenance
- 4,976 events involved compression injuries because of shifting objects or equipment
- 3,659 events involved falls on the same level or slipping
This tool enables workers and employers to understand how severe injuries happen, providing valuable data that, when paired with OSHA resources, can help reduce workplace hazards and prevent future injuries. OSHA notes that the information will be updated regularly and covers only incidents within federal OSHA jurisdiction. State plan jurisdictions are not covered by the online tool.
Photo credits: wladimir1804, AdobeStock
