We recently parsed out OSHA’s Catastrophe reports so for the most recent 12 month period (October 2015 – September 2016) to give you a picture of how this year has been for the safety of workers in major cities and across the 50 US states. We’ve also included a table with accident counts and percentages by Focus Four Category (Fall, Struck-By, Crushed, Electrocuted) and an interactive map of data for all US cities that have had a catastrophic accident.

We’ll start out with a summary of our findings.

Summary:

  • New York City continues to be an incredibly safe place for workers.

So far in 2016, the big apple tops the list of safest cities for workers with a Deaths Per Million ratio (which we’ll from here refer to as DPM) of 0.59. Remember, OSHA training is mandatory in the state of New York. This might not fully explain why New York City is the safest big city in the country to work in, but it is due some credit given that the major cities in other required states also have low accident/death rates.

  • Miami’s having a rough year.

Miami tops the list for big cities with 10 deaths and a DPM ratio of 23.94, doubling their death total of 5 for the previous 12 month period.

  • Maryland and Delaware are quite safe despite not requiring OSHA training.

Maryland, with it’s state population of nearly 6 million people, has had only 5 deaths for a DPM of 0.84. Delaware has had only 1 death to it’s population of 1 million. Interestingly, neither of these states are one of the 7 states where OSHA training is mandatory. This leads us to our next point.

  • Most States with Required OSHA Training are performing well.

Nevada, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Connecticut, all of which have mandatory OSHA training, are all within the top 10 states for lowest DPM. New Hampshire, which also requires training, is way down at #26 on the list. However, it has a small population so the measly 5 deaths make a huge impact on it’s DPM. In 2015, New Hampshire only had 2 deaths the entire year and ranked #4 on this list so we’ll give it a pass. That leaves us with Missouri.

  • Missouri Continues to have problems despite requiring OSHA Training.

This period, Missouri has had 19 deaths and ranks #17 on the list for DPM. In the previous period it had 27 deaths and ranked #33. So why is it the only state with mandatory OSHA training that performs poorly? That may be a topic for another article.

  • Percentage of Fall related accidents slightly down, Struck-by accidents slightly up.

In the previous 12 month period, Falls accounted for 32.2% of all reported catastrophic accidents. In the most recent period that number dropped to 30.6%. Struck-by accidents on the other hand have accounted for 5.2% of accidents this year compared to just 2.9% in previous period.

Below we have all the data for October 2015 – September 2016, along with an interactive map of every city and it’s associated statistics.

Links to data tables and map:

Accidents by US City

Rank by Population City Population Number of Accidents Number of Deaths Deaths Per Million People
1 New York City, NY 8405837 5 5 0.59
2 Los Angeles, CA 3884307 7 7 1.8
3 Chicago, IL 2718782 6 6 2.21
4 Houston, TX 2195914 17 18 8.2
5 Philadelphia, PA 1553165 1 1 0.64
6 Phoenix, AZ 1513367 2 2 1.32
7 San Antonio, TX 1409019 7 7 4.97
8 San Diego, CA 1355896 2 2 1.48
9 Dallas, TX 1257676 11 11 8.75
10 San Jose, CA 998537 1 1 1.0
11 Austin, TX 885400 1 1 1.13
12 Indianapolis, IN 843393 4 4 4.74
13 Jacksonville, FL 842583 3 3 3.56
14 San Francisco, CA 837442 1 1 1.19
15 Columbus, OH 822553 1 1 1.22
16 Charlotte, NC 792862 3 3 3.78
17 Fort Worth, TX 792727 6 6 7.57
18 Detroit, MI 688701 3 3 4.36
19 El Paso, TX 674433 1 1 1.48
20 Memphis, TN 653450 1 1 1.53
21 Seattle, WA 652405 5 5 7.66
22 Denver, CO 649495 2 2 3.08
23 Boston, MA 645966 1 1 1.55
24 Nashville, TN 634464 5 5 7.88
25 Oklahoma City, OK 610613 4 4 6.55
26 Louisville, KY 609893 6 6 9.84
27 Las Vegas, NV 603488 3 3 4.97
28 Milwaukee, WI 599164 1 1 1.67
29 Albuquerque, NM 556495 1 1 1.8
30 Tucson, AZ 526116 3 3 5.7
31 Fresno, CA 509924 2 2 3.92
32 Long Beach, CA 469428 1 1 2.13
33 Kansas City, MO 467007 4 4 8.57
34 Atlanta, GA 447841 3 3 6.7
35 Colorado Springs, CO 439886 3 2 4.55
36 Omaha, NE 434353 1 1 2.3
37 Raleigh, NC 431746 1 1 2.32
38 Miami, FL 417650 10 10 23.94
39 Minneapolis, MN 400070 1 1 2.5
40 Tulsa, OK 398121 2 2 5.02
41 Cleveland, OH 390113 1 1 2.56
42 Wichita, KS 386552 2 3 7.76
43 Arlington, TX 379577 2 2 5.27
44 New Orleans, LA 378715 4 4 10.56
45 Bakersfield, CA 363630 3 3 8.25
46 Tampa, FL 352957 3 3 8.5
47 Aurora, CO 345803 1 1 2.89
48 Anaheim, CA 345012 1 1 2.9
49 Corpus Christi, TX 316381 3 3 9.48
50 Lexington, KY 308428 1 1 3.24

Accidents by State

(Excluding states with zero accidents)

Rank by Death Ratio State Population Number of Accidents Number of Deaths Deaths Per Million People
1 Maryland 5,976,407 5 5 0.84
2 Delaware 935,614 1 1 1.07
3 Nevada 2,839,099 5 5 1.76
4 Massachusetts 6,745,408 13 12 1.78
5 Rhode Island 1,055,173 2 2 1.9
6 California 38,802,500 73 75 1.93
7 Colorado 5,355,856 12 11 2.05
8 New York 19,746,227 44 43 2.18
9 Arizona 6,731,484 15 16 2.38
10 Connecticut 3,596,677 9 9 2.5
11 North Carolina 9,943,964 25 26 2.61
12 Pennsylvania 12,787,209 34 34 2.66
13 Minnesota 5,457,173 15 15 2.75
14 Michigan 9,909,877 28 28 2.83
15 Maine 1,330,089 4 4 3.01
16 Utah 2,942,902 9 9 3.06
17 Missouri 6,063,589 19 19 3.13
18 Ohio 11,594,163 37 37 3.19
19 New Jersey 8,938,175 29 29 3.24
20 Wisconsin 5,757,564 19 19 3.3
21 Kansas 2,904,021 10 10 3.44
22 Virginia 8,326,289 27 29 3.48
23 Georgia 10,097,343 37 37 3.66
24 Idaho 1,634,464 5 6 3.67
25 Nebraska 1,881,503 7 7 3.72
26 New Hampshire 1,326,813 5 5 3.77
27 Illinois 12,880,580 49 49 3.8
28 Washington 7,061,530 27 27 3.82
29 Arkansas 2,994,079 12 12 4.01
30 Florida 19,893,297 81 80 4.02
31 Indiana 6,596,855 27 28 4.24
32 Mississippi 2,984,926 14 14 4.69
33 South Dakota 853,175 6 4 4.69
34 Tennessee 6,549,352 31 32 4.89
35 Wyoming 584,153 3 3 5.14
36 New Mexico 2,085,572 10 11 5.27
37 Texas 26,956,958 146 144 5.34
38 Oklahoma 3,878,051 21 22 5.67
39 Montana 1,023,579 6 6 5.86
40 Louisiana 4,649,676 29 30 6.45
41 Kentucky 4,413,457 30 30 6.8
42 Iowa 3,107,126 22 22 7.08
43 West Virginia 1,850,326 14 14 7.57
44 Alabama 4,849,377 37 37 7.63
45 Vermont 626,011 5 5 7.99
46 North Dakota 739,482 8 9 12.17

Accidents by Focus Four Category

Category Number of Accidents Percentage of Total Accidents
Fall 331 30.6%
Crushed 151 14.0%
Electrocuted 83 7.7%
Struck 56 5.2%

Interactive Map of Full Dataset

  • Disclosure:
    We offer no guarantee that our numbers are 100% accurate, as they were compiled programmatically from a large list of cases with occasional irregularities in the formatting of the data. A few areas where data could be slightly inaccurate include: total number of deaths by city or state, deaths per million (given that it’s based off the total deaths statistic), and deaths by focus four category.
  • Due to the fact these accidents happened recently, many of the investigations are ongoing and as such, we can’t be 100% confident about the accuracy of each report.

Data Source: https://www.osha.gov/dep/fatcat/dep_fatcat_archive.html