THE TREND OF FATAL OCCUPATIONAL INJURY RATES IN MALAYSIA IN THE PAST DECADE

Background: Despite significant emphasis has been focused on occupational safety and health in the recent years, industrial accidents are still highly common. Thousands of workers suffer occupational injuries daily. A major global risk factor for workers’ health is workplace injury, which has serious physical, social, and economic repercussions for both employees and their employers. Objective: The objective of the study is to determine the trend in the rate of fatal occupational injuries among workers in Malaysia over the past decade. This paper also focuses on the number of injuries according to industrial sectors so as to strengthen the policy framework and implement appropriate preventive measures accordingly. Methodology: Secondary data from National Occupational Accident Statistics 2021 obtained from Department of Statistics, Malaysia is used in this study. A descriptive analysis is performed on the number of fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries in the past decade. Results: The overall rate of fatal work-related injuries in 2021, the lowest in the past decade, with highest rate reported in 2017 (4.90). The construction sector had the highest number of fatal injuries reported in 2021 which is 73. The highest type of injury reported for the year is unspecified type. Conclusion: The study shows a significant decrease in the rate of fatal occupational injuries in the past 10 years, although could be strongly associated with the closure of many industrial sectors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, continuous strengthening of regulatory framework and expansion of advanced training sessions should be prioritized for an effective prevention.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Title: ScienceOpen Posters

Publisher: ScienceOpen

Publication date (Electronic preprint): 7 March 2023

Affiliations

[1 ] Public Health Division, Perak State Health Department, Ministry of Health, Malaysia;

Author notes

[* ]Email: nitha_5@ 123456yahoo.com .

Author information

Vanitha Thurairasu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9050-9921

Article

DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-.PP21PCF.v1

SO-VID: 741ff9c0-8570-4966-beba-a3ccda7e6f7d

License:

This work has been published open access under Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Conditions, terms of use and publishing policy can be found at www.scienceopen.com .

History

Date received : 7 March 2023

References

Zermane Abderrahim, Tohir Mohd Zahirasri Mohd, Zerguine Haroun, Noumeur Abdelmoutaleb. A Study to Uncover the Malaysian Workplace Fatal Accident Patterns. SSRN Electronic Journal. Elsevier BV. [Cross Ref]
Hämäläinen Päivi, Leena Saarela Kaija, Takala Jukka. Global trend according to estimated number of occupational accidents and fatal work-related diseases at region and country level. Journal of Safety Research. Vol. 40(2):125–139. 2009. Elsevier BV. [Cross Ref]

Comments

Vanitha Thurairasu wrote:

This e-poster was published during the 9th UNIMAS Public Health Seminar 2023.

2023-03-10 12:38 UTC

One person recommends this

Comment on this article

[1] Zermane Abderrahim, Tohir Mohd Zahirasri Mohd, Zerguine Haroun, Noumeur Abdelmoutaleb. A Study to Uncover the Malaysian Workplace Fatal Accident Patterns. SSRN Electronic Journal. Elsevier BV. [Cross Ref]

[2] Hämäläinen Päivi, Leena Saarela Kaija, Takala Jukka. Global trend according to estimated number of occupational accidents and fatal work-related diseases at region and country level. Journal of Safety Research. Vol. 40(2):125–139. 2009. Elsevier BV. [Cross Ref]