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CDC Study Finds Lifetime Cost of Injuries in Billions

The lifetime cost of injuries occurring in a single year in the United States totals an estimated $406 billion in medical expenses and productivity losses (including lost wages, fringe benefits, and ability to perform normal household responsibilities), according to findings released by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Nearly $80.2 billion is attributed to medical expenses, while $326 billion is estimated for lifetime productivity losses for the almost 50 million injuries that required medical treatment in 2000. These
costs begin to accumulate when the injuries occur and are spread over each injured persons’ expected lifetime.

“The financial and economic impact of injuries in the United States is serious,” said CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding. “However, by expanding our science based injury prevention programs, we can
drastically reduce these costs and even more importantly help people live longer and healthier lives.”

The new data and findings were released in the book “The Incidence and Economic Burden of Injuries in the United States,” by scientists from the CDC, as wells as scientific research contractors at RTI International and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

The book, which is the most comprehensive analysis of the economic costs of injuries to date, makes use of 2000 data to update and expand a 1989 Report to Congress.

Researchers noted that actual costs of injuries are likely greater than the figure reported. Police services, caregiver time, costs for pain and suffering, and other non-monetary costs are not included in this analysis.

Additional findings include:
Males account for approximately 70 percent ($283 billion) of the total costs of injuries, largely due to higher rates of fatal injury and the magnitude of their lost wages.

Persons aged 25 to 44 years represent 30 percent of the U.S. population and 40 percent ($164 billion) of the total costs of injuries.

Motor vehicles account for 22 percent ($89 billion), and fall injuries account for 20 percent ($81 billion) of the total costs of injuries.

“Many of the nearly 50 million injuries that occur each year in the United States are preventable,” said Dr. Ileana Arias, director of CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention. “To accomplish that though, we need greater recognition of the value of our prevention efforts. As this study shows, the benefits of preventing things like motor vehicle crashes, falls, residential fires, childhood abuses and other injuries are significant.”

Additional information about this book, the burden of injury in the United States and CDC’s injury prevention work can be found at CDC’s website, www.cdc.gov/injury.

Rand Study: Single-Location Workplaces Among Safest
Small workplaces that are a business’s only location are among the safest places to work, according to a RAND Corporation study.

The finding provides an important exception to research that workers in small workplaces are at greater risk of fatal accidents than those in larger workplaces, according to an examination of federal workplace fatality reports from 1992 to 2001.

The Rand Researchers found that fatal accidents were most common at small worksites with fewer than 20 workers that were operated by middle-sized businesses – defined as those with 20 to 999 employees.

Fatality rates at these worksites were two to five times higher than similar worksites operated by either small or large businesses. Researchers say the study’s findings are important because businesses with fewer than 100 employees play a vital role in the U.S. economy, employing more than half of all American workers.

The research was funded by the Kauffman Foundation and carried out by the Kauffman-RAND Center for the Study of Small Business and Regulation, which is a part of the RAND Institute for Civil Justice.

The report says that small, single-site businesses may be safer because they could have an owner on the premises who watches over the safety of employees.

“At a small workplace, one person can make more of a difference, and it seems plausible that an on-site owner might feel more responsibility to try to avoid injuring workers than a hired manager would,” said John Mendeloff, the study’s lead author and a professor of public policy at the University of Pittsburgh.

RAND researchers identified trends in fatal workplace accidents by analyzing more than 17,000 workplace deaths investigated by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The
analysis did not include deaths from assaults and highway crashes, because they are not usually investigated by OSHA.

Researchers identified trends involving both the size of the individual worksite (number of workers at a single location) and the overall number of workers a business employs at multiple locations. The study found that the smallest worksites operated by a business with multiple worksites are likely to be the riskiest. For example, among manufacturing businesses with 1,000 or more workers, the fatality rate at worksites with fewer than 20 workers was three times higher than worksites with 20 to 49 workers and eight times higher than locations with 1,000 or more workers.

These results suggest that the safety records of single establishment small firms may justify lighter regulatory intervention there. In addition, it might make sense for OSHA to focus more effort at middle-sized firms that have small establishments, because they present by far the highest fatality risks.

OSHA Not Doing Enough For Federal Workers
OSHA’s oversight of federal agencies’ safety programs is not as effective as it could be because the agency does not use its enforcement and compliance assistance resources in a strategic manner,
according to a report released by the General Accountability Office last month.

Although inspections are one of OSHA’s primary enforcement tools, it does not conduct many inspections of federal worksites or have a national strategy for targeting worksites with high injury
and illness rates for inspection, said the report.

Furthermore, according to the GAO, although OSHA is responsible for tracking violations that agencies dispute and reporting any unresolved disputes to the President, OSHA does not track these disputed
violations or their resolution. In addition, although OSHA is required to review agencies’ safety programs annually and submit a report on them to the President each year, as of January 2006, the
last report submitted was for fiscal year 2000.

Finally, while OSHA has a range of compliance assistance programs designed to help agencies comply with its regulations and improve safety, these programs are not being fully utilized.

Federal workers’ compensation costs exceeded $1.5 billion in 2004, with approximately 148,000 new claims filed that year. Many agency officials stated that, due to limited resources, they often must depend on safety officers with limited professional safety experience. OSHA’s oversight of federal agencies’ safety programs is not as effective as it could be because the agency does not use its enforcement and compliance assistance resources in a strategic manner.

OSHA says its enforcement efforts remain strong, fair, and effective, targeting the most hazardous workplaces and the employers who have the highest injury and illness rates. It says it focuses on the
bottom line: reducing workplace injuries, illnesses,and fatalities.