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- Letters to the editor | The Oregonian
Your article on deadly occupations reports that there were 52 fatal workplace accidents in Oregon in 2024, (“These are Oregon’s most deadly occupations,” Aug. 2). The source is the annual U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. The critical word here is injuries, because these statistics exclude fatal occupational diseases. My review of literature in 2020 for the Economic Policy Institute revealed fatal diseases can outnumber accidents by as much as 10 to one.
This is important for many reasons. It shows that the problem of unsafe working conditions is much larger than injury data alone would indicate. That changes the perception of which jobs are the most dangerous. It has important implications for how working conditions should be regulated. And it points to the shortcomings of the workers compensation system, which in practice more easily compensates workers and their families for injuries. The difficulty of attributing a disease to a specific contributing factor increases barriers to these worker compensation claims.
It is true that it is much harder to determine whether and to what extent a disease was caused by workplace factors. However, that is an argument for better monitoring of work, especially by workers themselves, who are in the best position to do it
Dorman is the author of a book and numerous studies on the economics of dangerous work
