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135 Monthly Lab. Rev. 19 (2012)
Updated BLS Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System

handle is hein.journals/month135 and id is 1012 raw text is: Updated BLS Occupational Injury and illness Classification System Tie evolving nature ofthe US. workplace, along with medical and technological advances, necessitated a revision to the OccupationalInjury and Illness Classification System employed by the BLs Occupational Safety and Health Statistics program; the new version also incorporates a number of enhancements to the originafirst released in 1992 Joyce M. Northwood, Eric F. Sygnatur, and Janice A. Windau Joyce M. Northwood is a senior financial economist in the Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Eric F. Sygnatur is an economist, and Janice A. Windau is an epidemiologist, in the Office of Safety, Health, and Working Conditions, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Email: jnorthwood@fdic.gov, sygnatur.eric@bls.gov, or windau.janice@bls.gov. ccupational injuries and illnesses S _ ~ require a context to be best under- stood. Falls, for example, account for more than 10 percent of fatal work in- juries and more than 20 percent of nonfa- tal work injuries requiring time away from work. What more is known about workplace falls? Can we identify where the worker fell from, the distance fallen, or any precipitat- ing environmental factors? What was the nature of the injury that resulted from the fall: a fracture, a sprain, or some other con- dition? And to what body part did the inju- ry occur? The stories behind falls and other workplace injuries are of vital importance for their analysis and prevention. A consist- ent and comprehensive coding system can categorize much that is known about these injuries, thus providing the research tools necessary for developing prevention strate- gies. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, the Bureau) uses the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (011CS)' to furnish this information in the agency's Oc- cupational Safety and Health Statistics pro- gram, in which finding is split between the federal government and partnering states. The 011cs has a uniform method for sta- tistically classifying occupational injury and illness data in a simple, yet detailed, hierarchical structure. Originally released in 1992, the system has been used to code case circumstance data from the BLS Cen- sus of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFuI) and Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (Soil) for incidents requiring days away from work. ihe Bureau published its first major revi- sion to the OICS (version 2.0) in Septem- ber 2010. An updated version, 2.01, was released in January 2012 and is being used in the CFI and SOil beginning with 2011 data, to be published in 2012.' This ar- ticle discusses the history and structure of the OIICS, justifies the need for a revision, outlines the objectives of the update, and details the substantive changes that were implemented. Throughout the article, any mention of the updated or new 011cs refers to version 2.01, whereas references to the older version of the OIICS refer to the origi- nal 1992 version. History and structure The Occupational Safety and Health Act (also known as the OSH Act) of 1970 re- quired the Department of Labor to de- velop and maintain an effective program of collection, compilation, and analysis of occupational safety and health data.4 In 1973, the Bureau began conducting an an- nual survey to collect this information from employers. In response to criticisms that the data were not specific enough to be an ef- fective tool for surveillance and prevention Monthly Labor Review • August 2012 19

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