Workplace violence in education, training, and library occupations

From 2011 to 2014, education, training, and library workers sustained 29 fatal injuries as a result of violence by people or animals. Of these 29 violent fatalities, 13 were intentionally self-inflicted, 12 were intentional injuries by another person, and 4 were inflicted by another person either unintentionally or with unknown intentions. Violence was second only to transportation incidents as the most frequent source of fatalities for educators, accounting for 41 work-related fatalities.

Violence and other injuries caused by people or animals accounted for 24 percent of all nonfatal injuries requiring educators to miss work in 2014. Of the 24 percent of violence-related injuries, about 3 in 5 were intentional injuries by a person. Falls, slips, and trips were the only cause of workplace injuries that accounted for more nonfatal injuries to educators than violence.

In 2014, educators were injured at a rate of 13.9 cases of workplace violence per 10,000 full-time workers. That compares to 6.8 cases per 10,000 for all workers. While violence-related incidence rates were higher for educators than for all workers, the overall injury rates for educators were much lower. The incidence rate for injuries from all causes was 59.0 for educators, compared to 107.1 for all workers.

These data are from the Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities program. For more information, see the Monthly Labor Review article “Putting violence in perspective: how safe are America’s educators in the workplace?”