Each year, millions of U.S. workers are injured on the job, yet the full scope of workplace injuries remains unclear. A recent article published in the American Journal of Public Health highlights the gaps in current injury reporting systems — and proposes a new path forward.
In their March 2025 paper, Dr. David Michaels of George Washington University and Dr. Gregory R. Wagner of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health suggest that broader use of data collected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could dramatically improve injury prevention efforts nationwide.
“Workplace injuries often have long-lasting effects — not only for workers, but also for their families and communities,” said Michaels. He noted that injuries can contribute to long-term financial instability and limited upward mobility, reinforcing cycles of poverty and inequality.
Currently, the two main federal systems for tracking jobsite injuries — the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) and the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII), both overseen by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — are hampered by underreporting and limited public access to raw data.
OSHA, however, has begun collecting more detailed and transparent injury data from employers. This includes fatal and severe injury reports, as well as injury records submitted through OSHA logs. While employer-reported and not without limitations, this data offers a richer picture of jobsite risks.
In their article, the authors show how these data types have already been used in research to analyze trends across different sectors. They argue that the public availability of OSHA’s injury data helps drive accountability, encouraging employers to improve safety practices even without direct inspections — a phenomenon they call the “spotlight effect.”
To strengthen compliance, the researchers suggest OSHA should more actively penalize underreporting. They also recommend linking OSHA’s data with outside sources like healthcare claims, demographic records, and employment data to better understand which workers are most at risk and why.
By leveraging this broader and more accessible dataset, Michaels and Wagner believe researchers, policymakers and safety professionals can develop more targeted and effective injury prevention strategies — ultimately making U.S. jobsites safer for everyone.
