THE ECONOMIC BURDEN OF FATAL OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES TO MINERS IN THE UNITED STATES - FATALITIES COST IN MINING

摘要

To better understand the burden imposed by fatal accidents in the mining industry, it is necessary to develop measures of the economic component of loss to complement existing surveillance research efforts. The Fatalities Cost in Mining web application, developed by the NIOSH Mining Program, uses an adapted version of a well-known cost of illness methodology to estimate the societal cost of an individual fatality based on key characteristics of the fatally injured miner. The user can select fatality characteristics (demographics, incident, employer, etc.) and reporting year (2010-2017 currently available) to generate a report and view the average societal cost per fatality as well as the total cost for all fatalities matching the criteria. For example, from 2010 through 2017 there were 316 fatal accidents with a median cost of $1.48 million per fatality with a total societal cost of $445.42 million. Researchers, occupational health professionals, workplace safety organizations, and labor unions have proven to be willing and avid users of past NIOSH estimates. This manuscript reviews the Fatalities Cost in Mining web app, including its development and how it can be used to estimate the economic burden of fatal mining injuries.