![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.jpg)
BACKGROUND: National estimates of non-fatal injuries and illnesses are provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII). Employers complete the SOII using the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) logs and other injury and illness records kept by the employers throughout the survey year. Previous qualitative studies conducted by BLS suggest that injury and illness recordkeeping practices may differ significantly by employer based on administrative experience and understanding of disparate rules for SOII and workers’ compensation, as well as other factors. The purpose of this project was to expand the investigation to a large number of employers to better quantify the recordkeeping factors that may contribute to a possible SOII undercount.
METHODS: The survey design was a random sample of 1,500 New York State establishments selected from 9,273 establishments that participated in the SOII in 2011. The sample was stratified by ownership, size class, and industry sector. The sample size was first proportionally allocated to the ownership class and a stratified simple random sample without replacement was used to select the sample. The contact lists were randomized and the respondent who was listed as completing the SOII received a solicitation letter regarding the project. Approximately one to two weeks later, potential participants were contacted by phone and asked to complete an interview about the company’s recordkeeping practices for injuries and illnesses.
RESULTS: The overall participation rate was 48.2%. Most of the respondents had overlapping roles in injury and illness recordkeeping processes (SOII, OSHA logs, and workers’ compensation). Nearly two-third of the respondents had no formal OSHA recordkeeping. When asked a series of knowledge based questions, 7% of untrained respondents compared to 32% of trained respondents received a perfect score. Respondents in establishments with 50+ employees were more likely to have received training than those in smaller establishments (42.2% vs. 24.7%; p=<.0001), as were record-keepers with greater than 5 years’ experience (53.6% vs 19.8%; p=.0001).
CONCLUSIONS: It is difficult to assess whether an emphasis on training SOII participants in OSHA record-keeping would improve the data captured by the SOII. While our analyses have demonstrated that training does impact knowledge, many of these establishment will not have a reportable case within the survey year. Also, many of these establishments are only required to keep an OSHA log during the SOII survey year, and will not be selected as a participant in subsequent years.