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Colorado Health Information Dataset (CoHID)

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System

Child and Adolescent Health

Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries

Fatality/Employment rate computation

Fatality/employment rates may be used to compare the risk of incurring injury among worker groups with varying employment levels. A fatality incidence rate, based on the total hours of exposure for worker groups, is a better measure of risk. However, exposure hours are not available for computing fatality incidence rates. Fatality/employment rates were computed using estimates of civilian workers (age 16 and older) from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The numerator (fatalities) and denominator (employment) of the rate should refer to the same group of workers as closely as possible. Because CPS employment data exclude workers under the age of 16 and the military, fatalities to these workers were excluded from the numerator in the calculation. The rates were computed for 2000 and for the 5-year annual average (1995-99) as:

Fatality/employment rate (2000) = (N00/W00) x 100,000
Fatality/employment rate (1995-99) = [(N95 + N96 + N97 + N98 + N99)/(W95 + W96 + W97 + W98 + W99)] x 100,000
          Nyear = number of civilian worker fatalities, age 16 and older
          Wyear = annual average number of employed civilians, age 16 and older
Fatality/employment rate limitations

State of residence versus State of incident
The CPS counts workers by their State of residence, whereas the CFOI counts workers by State of injury. Fatality/employment rates may be affected significantly for States with net inflows or outflows of commuters, migrant workers, business travelers, and workers in inter-State transportation. For example, truck drivers incur a large number of occupational fatalities outside their State of residence. For this reason, comparisons among and between States should be made with caution. 

Employment sampling errors
Rather than a complete count, the CPS employment data used to calculate the rates are estimates based on a sample of households which are surveyed to obtain data for all workers in those households. Therefore, the CPS estimates and the fatality rates have sampling errors. The estimates of fatality/employment rates may differ from rates that would have been obtained if it had been possible to take a census of employed persons. Users may use relative standard errors of the CPS employment estimates to approximate confidence intervals for the fatality/employment rates. See "Explanatory notes and estimates of error" in January 1999 Employment and Earnings for and explanation of CPS sampling, estimation, and standard error computations.