O7A.3 Creating safer workplaces: learning from work-related fatal injury in new zealand

Background NZ’s workplace fatality record is high compared to similar countries, with a rate twice that of Australia and four times that of the UK. The reasons for NZ’s substandard performance are highly debated, and in-depth analysis to inform this debate is limited by a dearth of detailed fatality data. This study aims to inform work-related injury prevention efforts for NZ by: i) enumerating the fatal injury burden; and ii) identifying high risk groups and circumstances to prioritise and target preventive action. Methods A dataset spanning forty-years of Coronial records was created by collecting data for the period 1995–2014 and appending this to existing data for 1975–1994. Data collection involved: 1) identifying possible cases aged 0–84 years from mortality records using injury external cause codes, 2) linking these to Coronial records 3) retrieving and reviewing records for work-relatedness, and 4) coding work-related cases. Work-related cases were classified as workers, bystanders, commuters or students. Work-related injury frequencies and rates per 1 00 000 workers for the most recent 20 year period were calculated by age, sex, employment status, occupation and industry. Results Of 17 658 injury fatalities reviewed for the period 1995–2014, 3766 (23%) were work-related, of which 1762 were workers. This corresponds to an overall rate of fatal injury of 4.7 (95% CI 4.5, 5.0) per 1 00 000 workers. Rates of fatal injury were highest for older workers aged 70–84 years (18.1, 95% CI 14.8, 21.8) and males (8.1, 95% CI 7.7, 8.5). The two industry groups with the highest burden of fatal injury were the Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries and Transport, Postal and Warehouse. Conclusions This research demonstrates an innovative use of coronial data, and provides a rare example of the establishment of a continuous and comprehensive long-term coronial dataset. It will be used to generate knowledge for informing workplace preventive strategies in NZ.