Serious occupational injuries in Australia: some deficiencies of the existing data collections

This study examines the incidence in Australia of "serious" occupational injuries, arbitrarily defined as those which resulted in absence from work for six months or more. The raw data were contained in computer print-outs specially prepared by the State offices of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the study includes analyses by age, sex, occupation and industry of the injured person. The unexpectedly large total of 14,281 high-severity injuries cannot be supported with confidence since the principal finding was the large and consistent variation in injury rates between the States. For males, the overall injury rates (per 10,000 persons) for Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania were in the range 11 to 16: those for Queensland and Western Australia were in the high 30s; whilst that for New South Wales exceeded 50. A similar ranking of injury rates prevailed in almost every subset. The highest rates arose in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia in six of the seven occupation groups, in nine of the ten industry groups and in all eleven age groups. It is difficult to find any scientific explanation for these variations in terms of levels or extent of exposure to risk. In the opinion of this author, these variations should be attributed to differences in the institutional arrangements for the coverage, collection and/or compilation of compensation data.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)