Workplace Health and Safety Strategy:
Outcome Monitoring Framework - Document for Consultation

Appendix F – Sources of Data


Injury Statistics - Work Related Claims (Statistics NZ)

Description

This report is published annually by Statistics NZ, based on data received from ACC. It provides information on claims to ACC for work related injury, and those work related illnesses compensated by ACC.

Time Series

First report produced in 2005, but this contained data from 2002 onwards.

Limitations

ACC data, while providing the most comprehensive statistics currently available for workplace injury, has some limitations. For example, the work-related claims data only includes claims with costs recorded against them. Consequently, any claims where the only treatment was provided at a hospital accident and emergency department (A&E) are not included, as the costs of treatment provided are not recorded against individual claims, and are instead bulk funded by ACC directly to the district health boards (DHBs).

For this, and other reasons, ACC data is likely to under-report the extent of work-related harm. This is supported by a study conducted by Langley et al (2000), which found that ACC only had records for 63% of work related fatal injuries identified in the NZ Health Information Service and coronial files.

Obtain

From Statistics NZ website http://www.stats.govt.nz/additional-information/injury-statistics/releases-reports.htm#work

http://www.stats.govt.nz/store/2008/10/injury-statistics-work-related-claims-2007-mr.htm


Business Operations Survey - Employment Practices Module (Statistics NZ)

Description

The main objective of the Business Operations Survey is to collect information on the operations of New Zealand businesses in order to quantify business behaviour, capacity and performance. The objective of the Employment Practices Module is to provide information on the characteristics of business and management practice. The survey covers economically significant enterprises with six or more employees.

Time Series

Employment Practices Module data is available for 2006 only.

Limitations

The Business Operations survey is run annually, with both standard and 'contestable' modules. The Employment Practices Module is 'contestable' and thus far has been run in 2006 only. To ensure this information is collected on an ongoing basis (every three or four years), the Department of Labour will need to lodge an expression of interest with Statistics NZ in April of the year prior to collection. http://www2.stats.govt.nz/domino/external/omni/omni.nsf/d9168e3797342cd64c25683a0000d5d0/0a9be49a50a9fac4cc2571550011a91b?OpenDocument

Obtain

From Statistics NZ website http://www.stats.govt.nz/store/2007/04/business-operations-survey-2006-hotp.htm?page=para021Master


Household Labour Force Survey - Survey of Working Life Supplement (Statistics NZ)

Description

The Survey of Working Life in New Zealand (SoWL) is run as a supplement to the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS). All employed HLFS respondents were asked to take part in the SoWL. The objective of the survey is to provide reliable statistical data to monitor changes in the employment conditions, working arrangements and job quality of employed people in New Zealand, and to better understand the reasons for and implications of these employment patterns.

Time Series

Currently results are only available from the March 2008 quarter. It is intended the SoWL be repeated every three years.

Obtain

From Statistics NZ website http://www.stats.govt.nz/products-and-services/hot-off-the-press/survey-of-working-life/survey-of-working-life-mar08qtr-hotp-revised.htm?page=para002Master


Business Demography Statistics (Statistics NZ)

Description

Business demography statistics provide an annual snapshot (as at February each year) of the structure and characteristics of New Zealand businesses. The series covers economically significant individual, private sector and public sector enterprises that are engaged in the production of goods and services in New Zealand.

The WHSS monitoring framework uses business demography statistics to provide contextualisation for some measures (for example, to convert frequencies into a rate per 1000 businesses). The data set provides statistics on the number of enterprises (roughly, companies) and the number of geographic units (roughly, workplaces). For the purposes of this monitoring, geographic units are used, on the assumption that, on a practical day-to-day level, health and safety is managed at the level of the workplace.

Time Series

2001 onwards

Obtain

From Statistics NZ website http://www.stats.govt.nz/products-and-services/info-releases/nz-bus-demo-stats.htm


Household Labour Force Survey (Statistics NZ)

Description

New Zealand's official employment and unemployment statistics, reported quarterly. The WHSS monitoring framework uses Household Labour Force Survey statistics to provide contextualisation for some measures, for example to calculate rates per 1000 workers.

Time Series

1986 onwards.

Obtain

From Statistics NZ website http://www.stats.govt.nz/products-and-services/info-releases/hlfs-info-releases.htm


Chartbook of the NZIPS Serious Injury Outcome Indicators (NZ Injury Prevention Strategy/ACC)

Description

The purpose of this chartbook is to present trends for the NZIPS fatal serious non-fatal injury indicators, for each of the NZIPS priority areas, in order to judge progress in the prevention of serious injury during the lifetime of the NZIPS. One of the priority areas is work related injury.

NZIPS work-related statistics differ from Statistics NZ data in a number of ways. Firstly, they provide age standardised rates which take into account the change in the age profile of the workforce over time. Secondly, they use hospital admission data (in addition to ACC data) to construct a measure of serious non-fatal injury (also age standardised). NZIPS data also presents fatality rates as 3-year moving averages. This helps to 'smooth' the variation due to chance that may be evident in statistics for relatively rare events, and give a clearer picture of the overall trend.

Time Series

Work-related fatal injury data is provided from 1995 onward, work-related serious non-fatal injury from 2001 onward.

Limitations

The Chartbook authors regard the work-related indicators as provisional (rather than validated) due to possible threats to validity as discussed in Cryer et al (2004).

Obtain

From NZIPS website http://www.nzips.co.nz/resources/publications.php


NZ Safety Culture Survey (NZ Injury Prevention Strategy/ACC)

Description

The Safety Culture Survey is an initiative of NZIPS, and is designed to provide benchmarking of New Zealanders attitudes to safety, and regular monitoring over time to gauge changes in these attitudes.

Time Series

The benchmark survey was run in 2007, and it is planned to repeat the survey every two years.

Obtain

From NZIPS website http://www.nzips.co.nz/resources/news_2007-10_4.php


Workplace Group Output Performance Statistics (Department of Labour)

Description

This data set aggregates information drawn from Workplace Group administrative databases which are used by Department of Labour staff (including health and safety inspectors) to record and support their client interactions. The primary use of the Output Performance Statistics by the Department is for accountability reporting and business planning.

Time Series

The data set is available in a standardised format from July 2006 (monthly statistics are provided).

Limitations

Because this is an administrative data set there may be issues with reliability due to data entry issues.

Obtain

By requesting information on relevant performance measures from the Performance team, Group Performance, Workplace, Department of Labour.


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