A Message from the CDC
EHS Today had a great article about ladder safety and why it's such an important topic.
The article shared a study from the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The study found that falls are still the leading cause of unintentional injury mortality nationwide. In fact, 43 percent of fatal falls in the last decade have involved a ladder.
Here is a graph they shared in the article:
Here are some facts, according to the study:
- Men and Hispanics had higher rates of fatal and nonfatal LFIs compared with women and non-Hispanic whites and workers of other races/ethnicities.
- LFI rates increased with age, except for injuries treated in emergency rooms.
- Fatality rates were significantly higher for self-employed workers (0.30 per 100,000 FTE workers) than salary/wage workers (0.06 per 100,000 FTE workers).
- Companies with the fewest employees had the highest fatality rates.
- The construction industry had the highest LFI rates compared with all other industries.
- Across all industries, the highest fatal and nonfatal LFI rates were in the following two occupation groups: construction and extraction (e.g., mining) occupations, followed by installation, maintenance and repair occupations.
- Head injuries were implicated in about half of fatal injuries (49 percent), whereas most nonfatal injuries involved the upper and lower extremities for employer-reported and emergency room-treated nonfatal injuries
