ABSTRACT
A recent inquiry into occupational health and safety in Australia was very critical of current national reporting of occupational health and safety (OHS) statistics, which are, at present, largely based on successful workers’ compensation claims for five or more days off work (Industry Commission, 1995). Major deficiencies were identified in the area of occupational disease data, particularly for diseases of long latency. Such criticisms are not unexpected given the well-known methodological difficulties associated with the study of disease. However, despite the much better data available for occupational injury, a number of important limitations were noted, including the lack of coverage of self-employed workers, the lack of data on less severe injuries, missing data, non-compliance with data standards, the restricted number of variables and limitations imposed by the coding used for those variables.
