Injury & Injury Rate

Construction Safety
 Type of Injuries
 Fatality
 Lost workday injury
 Medical treatment
 Days away from work
 Days with restricted work activity
 OSHA recordable injury
 Need medical treatment by a doctor
 Include lost workday injury
 First aid
 (Near miss)
 Injury Rate

 Fatality rate: fatalities per 100,000 workers

 Lost workday injury rate, OSHA recordable injury
rate, and first aid injury rate: number of lost
workday injuries per 200,000 worker hours (or
per 100 workers working in a full year)
 200,000 hr. = 40 hr./wk * 50 wk/yr * 100 workers
 Injury rate is essentially the percentage of
workers that were injured
 Calculation of IR

Example 1
A project worked 600,000 hours with 9 OSHA
recordable injuries, what is the injury rate (IR,
or RIR) of the project?
IR = 9
200,000 600,000

Answer: IR = 3
 Calculation of IR

Example 2
Last year, a project with 1,500 workers had 6
lost workday injuries, what is the injury rate of
the project?

IR = 6
100 1,500

Answer: IR = 0.4
Injury rate of construction industry
Lost Workday Injury Rate of construction industry Lost Workday Injury Rate of all private industry
OSHA Recordable Injury Rate of construction industry OSHA Recordable Injury Rate of all private industry
18

15.8 16 15.5
15.4
16 14.915.2 14.9 14.7
15 15.1
14.5 14.514.4
14.214.1
14
Injury Rate (per 100 full-time workers)

12.8 12.9
12
11.5
12
10.4
9.7
10 9.2 9.2 9.3
8.9 9
8.5 8.7 8.4
8.1 8.3 8.2 8.3 8.3 8.2
8 7.9 7.9 7.7
7.6 7.5 7.8 7.7 7.7 7.5 7.8
8 6.9
6.6
6.2
5.9 5.8
6 6.8 6.9 6.8 6.8 6.7 6.8 6.7 5.4
6.5 6.3 6.6
6.3 6 6.2 6
5.8 5.7 5.4 5.4
5.4
4 4.8
4.2 3.9 4.4 4.4
4 4 4.1 4 3.9
3.7 3.7 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.9 3.7 3.6 3.5 3.5
3.4 3.4 3.4 3.6 3.6 3.6 3.4
2 3.1 3.1 2.9 2.8 2.8
2.6

0
1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001

Year
Fatality rate of construction industry
Fatalities in all industries Fatalities in construction industry

7000
6000 6632
Number of fatalities

6217 6331 6275 6202 6238 6055 6054

5000 5915

4000
3000
2000
1000
971 1077 1083 1086 1123 1198 1210 1159
0 963
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Year

Data source: www.bls.gov/iif

 Conclusions

 OSHA recordable injury rate is widely used in the

industry to describe and evaluate the safety
performance of a project or a construction firm.
 The injury rates are lagging indicators for
measuring safety performance. There are other
lagging indicators and leading indicators.