Efforts to reduce New Zealand's "appalling'' death toll from workplace injuries are being handicapped by inadequate statistics, University of Otago researcher Dr Rebbecca Lilley says.
This week Dr Lilley, of the university's injury prevention research unit, received a $1,191,876 Health Research Council grant to address this issue, and to improve the information available.
The reported death rate from workplace injuries was "appalling'' and had to be addressed, she said.
Every year, one in 10 workers was injured at work in New Zealand.
Most recent estimates indicated more than 100,000 workers required time off work, 12,000 were permanently disabled and 105 were killed every year from work-related injuries.
Dr Lilley said shortcomings in current information on work-related fatal injuries were a "significant barrier to reducing workplace death''.
If all workplace injury deaths were recorded, she believed the death toll would be about 200 a year.
She was optimistic the death rate could be cut, because the Government was keen to achieve this, and new health and safety legislation was encouraging employers to learn more about "where the risks are, and doing something about it''.
Some deaths, such as those involving professional truck drivers, were not always being recorded as workplace fatalities, and other related road deaths were also not always being picked up, she said.
After the Pike River mine disaster, the reasons for New Zealand's "poor performance'' in workplace safety had been "highly debated'' but in-depth analysis was "limited by a dearth of detailed work-related fatal injury data''.
Her research focus was on "creating safer workplaces'' and ‘‘understanding our work-related fatalities''.
This research would address the need for comprehensive and informative fatal injury data by using coronial data, which had been shown to yield "high-quality, rich information with comprehensive capture of work fatalities''.
The data would be used to "identify targets for policy'' and for "interventions for prevention'', she said.
Statistics showed New Zealand workplaces were "unsafe when compared to workplaces in the UK, Australia and many other OECD nations'', she said.
