OSHA Announces 2019 National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls
Employers and workers are invited to participate in the fourth annual National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction, May 6–10, 2019.
The weeklong outreach event encourages employers and workers to pause during the workday to discuss fall hazards and how to prevent them.
Falls are the leading cause of death in the construction industry, accounting for 37% percent of fatalities industry-wide.
Among OSHA’s top-10 safety violations for Fiscal 2018, violation of the Fall Protection-General Requirements standard was number one, while violation of the Fall Protection-Training Requirements standard came in at number eight.
Falls remain a persistent cause of work-related deaths, and workers in construction and oil and gas extraction are more likely than other workers to die from falling.
Research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health published earlier this year in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine identified 8,880 worker deaths from falls at work from 2003 to 2014.
Most of these incidents occurred in construction and oil and gas extraction when a worker fell from a higher to a lower level, rather than from falls on the same level.
Highest-Risk Groups
Most of the deaths were among men, who died from a work-related fall more than four times as often as women.
In addition, older workers were more likely to die from a fall at work than younger workers were.
The highest death rate was among workers age 65 and older, although the majority of fatal incidents were among those between the ages of 45 and 54.
The study also found differences by place of birth and race. Workers born in another country had a higher rate of fatal falls to a lower level. The highest rate of fatal falls occurred among Hispanic workers compared to white (non-Hispanic) workers.
The findings highlight the importance of collaboration to prevent work-related falls through compliance with safety regulations, prevention through design to create safe workplaces, and worker training.
Register now for CBIA’s Boost Productivity with Smarter Workplace Safety workshop, designed to help you better align your EH&S protocols with lean initiatives, Jan. 9, 2019, from 8:30 to 11:30 am at the CBIA Conference Center in Hartford.
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