The apparent increase in the number of workplace fatalities during the summer months in New Zealand has raised concerns among health and safety organisations as well as the general public. An important step towards achieving a goal of ‘Healthy people in safe and productive workplaces’ is to first establish through statistical analysis whether the seasonal summertime peak in fatalities does, in fact, exist and, if so, what industrial sectors and geographical regions are most responsible for it. Ultimately, the Department of Labour seeks to identify the major causal factors of workplace fatalities and to establish effective preventative strategies.
This study has been carried out to investigate the perceived seasonal trend in workplace fatalities and to identify the factors that are associated with it or have a contributing effect on occurrence.
Purpose
There were two principal aims of the project: The first was to confirm whether or not a seasonal trend exists for summertime workplace fatalities both for nationwide occurrence, and for industries and geographical regions; the second was to identify the major causal factors for the workplace fatalities particularly during the summer season. In order to achieve these aims the following specific objectives were identified:
• Identify and confirm the trend of workplace fatalities over the past several years.
• Identify and confirm the seasonal trend of workplace fatalities in terms of their occurrences nationwide, and with different industries and regions.
• Identify the potential contributing factors for summertime fatalities, including the environmental factors, sociological factors, workplace factors, and individual/personal factors.
• Verify contributing factors by independent evidence.
• Develop the profiles of contributing factors for summertime workplace fatalities and identify potential intervention strategies.
Methodology
Nationwide workplace fatality data from Department of Labour databases, covering the past six years (2000 to 2005 inclusive), were statistically analysed to investigate annual and seasonal trends (by industry, region, workers’ age, employment status, and other variables). The analysis included 362 fatal incidents. The data were coded using the ANZSIC (Australian New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification Codes) system for the detailed analysis by industrial sectors. It should be noted that the ANZSIC system classifies the ‘Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing’ as one industry sector and this report uses this as a standard classification (and sometimes ‘agriculture’ for short), however, Department of Labour data do not cover fishing.
Data normalisation was carried out as necessary and when a reliable denominator was available. This reduces or eliminates the potential bias of incident occurrence due to the variation of some ‘risk exposure’ factors, such as the change in total population of the workforce over time. In addition to analysis of the existing data, the fatality investigation reports were reviewed in order to determine the factors that contributed to incident occurrence.
Semi structured interviews were conducted in order to identify issues that may be associated with a summer peak in work related fatalities. Interviews were held with Department of Labour investigators, advisors and engineers, and many industry experts, including representatives from Business New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions. In addition, a very broad and detailed literature review was conducted to uncover any independent evidence in support of workplace factors, environmental factors, sociological factors, and personal/individual factors that might contribute to seasonal variations in fatality rate. Preliminary analyses of the serious harm data were conducted in order to investigate similarities in trends between the fatalities and the serious harm data sets.