Analysis of correlation between age and occupational accident rates in one-year intervals

Abstract

We calculated the occupational accident rate in Japan, that is, the number of victims per 1,000 workers in a year, as a function of age, in one-year age intervals from 2006–2010 statistics on occupational accidents and employees. We used individual accident data randomly sampled from the reports of occupational accidents requiring at least a four-day absence, including fatal accidents, collected by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. We determined the number of employees by age group from the results of the Labour Force Survey by the Statistics Bureau, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. We found that each age distribution classified by the type of accident, cause, and/or kind of industry has different characteristics. Further, the analysis in one-year intervals clearly revealed the age group at higher risk and drastic changes in the rate for small age differences of two to three years.