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Bureau of Labor Statistics > Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities > Home

Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI): Definitions

Scope

The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) has detailed information on those who died at work due to a traumatic injury. For more information on how CFOI defines work relationship and traumatic injuries, see www.bls.gov/iif/overview/cfoi-scope.htm.

CFOI data include all fatalities that occurred in the reference year that were the result of a workplace injury, regardless of when the injury occurred.

Data Element Definitions

CFOI has published data on fatal occupational injuries for the United States since 1992. During this time, the classification systems and definitions of many data elements have changed. As the CFOI program developed, new data elements were introduced to increase the depth of the data and respond to data user requests. The handbook of methods contains a list of all of the data elements in CFOI, the classification system used for each year, and the years for which they are available.

Additional Information on Variable Coding and Presentation

Industry

Cases where industry is unknown are included in the service sector counts. Counts for industry categories that are unspecified or not elsewhere classified are not displayed. Detailed counts may not sum to total. For some cases, industry is not available at the most detailed level. These cases are coded at a higher level of aggregation. For this reason, detailed industry counts will not sum to the higher level of aggregation.

Comparisons of data using NAICS 2017 to previous years under prior NAICS coding structures should be made with caution. Users are also advised against making comparisons between industry data for 2003 forward and the industry data for previous years.

Occupation

Cases where occupation is unknown are included in the total. Counts for military occupations include all workers classified as active duty military, regardless of their specific military occupation. Counts for occupation categories that are unspecified or not elsewhere classified are not displayed. Detailed counts may not sum to total.

Comparisons of data using SOC 2018 to previous years under prior SOC coding structures should be made with caution.

Ownership

Cases where ownership is unknown are included in private industry counts. Cases classified as foreign government and other government are included in all government counts, but not displayed separately.

Gender

Cases where gender is unknown are not included. Counts by gender will not add to total cases.

Age

Cases where age is unknown are not included. Counts by age group will not add to total cases.

Employee Status

Cases where employee status is unknown are included in the counts of wage and salary workers.

Race or Ethnic Origin

Cases where ethnicity is unknown are included in counts of non-Hispanic workers.

Occupational Injury and Illness Classification Variables: Event or Exposure, Primary Source, Secondary Source, Nature, Part of Body

Counts for categories that are unspecified or not elsewhere classified are not displayed. Detailed counts may not sum to total. Due to a lack of detail in source documents for some cases, the most detailed level cannot be coded and is coded at a higher level. These cases are included in the counts for higher levels of aggregation and are not displayed separately. Detailed counts may not add to total.

Worker Activity

Counts for categories that are unspecified or not elsewhere classified are not displayed. Detailed counts may not sum to total. Due to a lack of detail in source documents for some cases, the most detailed level cannot be coded and the case is coded at a higher level. These cases are included in the counts for higher levels of aggregation and are not displayed separately. Detailed counts may not add to total. For a table of the worker activity coding structure, see www.bls.gov\iif\definitions\worker-activity.xlsx.

Location

State of Incident

Counts for cases where the state of incident could not be determined are not displayed. Detailed count may not sum to total.

Last Modified Date: December 17, 2020