Although occupational injuries are among the leading causes of death and disability around the world, the burden due to occupational injuries has historically been under-recognized, obscuring the need to address a major public health problem. We established the Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index (LMWSI) to provide a reliable annual metric of the leading causes of the most serious workplace injuries in the United States based on direct workers compensation (WC) costs. More than $600 billion in direct WC costs were spent on the most disabling compensable non-fatal injuries and illnesses in the United States from 1998 to 2010. The burden in 2010 remained similar to the burden in 1998 in real terms. The categories of overexertion ($13.6B, 2010) and fall on same level ($8.6B, 2010) were consistently ranked 1st and 2nd. The LMWSI was created to establish the relative burdens of events leading to work-related injury so they could be better recognized and prioritized. Such a ranking might be used to develop research goals and interventions to reduce the burden of workplace injury in the United States.


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    Title :

    The direct cost burden of 13years of disabling workplace injuries in the U.S. (1998-2010): Findings from the Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index



    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2015




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    BKL:    44.80 / 44.80 Unfallmedizin, Notfallmedizin / 50.17 / 55.80 / 55.80 Verkehrswesen, Transportwesen: Allgemeines / 50.17 Sicherheitstechnik