Occupational injury deaths among females. The US experience for the decade 1980 to 1989.

From 1980 through 1989, females accounted for 44% of the total employed population. Thus, occupational safety and health issues specific to the experience of women merit consideration. Research has demonstrated that the occupational fatality experience of females is not adequately described by the group of all workers. The leading cause of death for all workers is motor vehicle incidents, while the leading cause of occupational injury death of females is homicide. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has compiled a decade of data on the fatal occupational injury experience of US workers, providing a sufficient number of female cases to allow separate analyses. Over the decade, 3821 females died as a result of injuries sustained at work, with an average annual fatality rate of 0.82/100,000 female workers. Among industries, retail trade and services accounted for nearly half of all occupational injury deaths to females. The detailed occupations with the highest rates of work-related injury death were airplane pilots and navigators, drivers of heavy trucks, construction laborers, and police and detectives. Information on the causes of work-related injury death by occupation is fundamental to the prevention of these deaths. The causes of death in the highest-risk occupations included aircraft crashes, motor vehicle collisions, pedestrians struck by motor vehicles, and homicides by firearms. These data provide a foundation for the prevention of occupational injury deaths among females in the United States.