Workers' Compensation Risk Management Top 10 Causes of Injury
- The top-ranked cause of injury was overexertion, defined as injuries from excessive lifting, lowering, pushing or pulling of an object.
Such injuries accounted for $10.3 billion in direct costs - 25.5 percent of the total.The other nine injury causes, ranked by direct costs, are as follows:
- Falls on the same level
$4.6 billion (11.5 percent of the total) Bodily reaction (injuries resulting from bending, standing, reaching, and slipping or tripping without falling) - $3.8 billion (9.4 percent). - Falls to a lower level
$3.7 billion (9.2 percent). - Struck by an object (such as a tool falling on a worker from above)
$3.4 billion (8.5 percent). - Repetitive motion
$2.7 billion (6.7 percent). - Highway accident
$2.4 billion (5.9 percent). - Being struck against an object (such as a worker walking into a doorframe)
$1.7 billion 4.3 percent). - Becoming caught in or compressed by equipment
$1.6 billion (4.1 percent). - Contact with temperature extremes
$400 million (1.0 percent).