In recent years, the U.S. workforce has achieved great successes in reducing the burden of unintentional injury. Government statistics show a 2% decline in the number of work-related fatal injuries from 1999 to 2000. Overall, the occupational death rate in the United States decreased by 10% since 1992. Nonetheless, unintentional injuries as a whole remain one of the leading causes of death and disability among U.S. adults due, in large part, to incidents occurring away from work. In 2000 there were136 million people in the U.S. workforce, of which 5,200 died on the job due to unintentional injuries. However, for each work-related fatal injury, eight workers were fatally injured away from work, amounting to 41,800 fatalities. The off-the-job (OTJ) injury mortality rate per 200,000 hours exposure by location was four times higher compared to the occupational injury mortality rate. In addition, the total number of OTJ disabling injuries was twice the number of injuries on the job.
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