Risk factors

Many factors contribute to a fatal incident at work. Lack of appropriate employee training and failure to provide and enforce the use of safety equipment are frequent contributors to occupational fatalities. In some cases, employees do receive safety training, but language barriers prevent the employee from fully understanding the safety procedures. Incidents can also be the result of insufficient supervision of inexperienced employees or employees who have taken on a responsibility for which they are not properly trained. Poor worksite organization, staffing and scheduling issues, unworkable policies and practices and workplace culture can all play a role in occupational fatalities. In any case, the incident leading to an occupational fatality is generally not the fault of a single person, but the tragic result of a combination of many human and environmental factors.
Although all workers are at risk for occupational fatalities, elderly workers age 65 and older are roughly three times more likely to die at work[5]. Hispanic workers die on the job at a higher rate than non-Hispanic workers. Men account for 92% of occupational deaths; however, women are more likely to be victims of homicide (27% of homicide victims are female) than die of any other cause at work[6].