Fatalities in farming and forestry: an examination of the registry information used in the Swedish national statistics, 1988-1997.
In Sweden, work-related injuries are filed in the ISA, a national information system. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is responsible for this registry, and local units of the ISA and the Labor Inspectorate provide the information. The risk of dying in a work-related accident is greatestfor those employed in farming and forestry. At the same time, small-scale industries such as farms and other entrepreneurial businesses have difficulties in reporting accidents. It is therefore possible that the registry is incomplete and/or has many errors with respect to this kind of occupational activity. Thus, it is of interest to study the ISA in this area. This study was carried out using information obtainedfrom the Labor Inspectorate (LI), the police, the occupational health service, and local persons. Errors were traced in 28 cases (17%), and at least one piece of necessary information was missing in 165 cases of a total of 167. Approximately 14% of the cases had such fundamental errors that the case should be withdrawn from the registry. Most of the errors concerned the victim's occupation/profession and the kind of work being done at the time of the accident. In order to be an adequate instrument for use in prevention work, the ISA files must be more complete. This is of special importance with respect to the characteristics of the events. At the same time, the number of errors should be reduced.
D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000401:mortality*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000383:Agriculture; D002648:Child; D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D005260:Female; D016468:Forestry; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000401:mortality*