Epidemiological evaluation of fatal occupational accidents and estimation of related human costs in Tehran

Background: The human being has an important role in the production cycle and it cannot be
possible to use him like other manufacturing organizations. Death due to occupational accidents
causes loosing years of life, years of working and other relegated costs in addition to hardware
assets’ loss. Therefore, controlling the rate of accidents has been one of the continuous efforts of
human. The target of this research is estimation of fatal occupational accidents and related human
costs.
Material & Methods: This research was performed as a cross sectional study in 2003.
Population of study included all dead insured staff, about 231 person, in Tehran province. The
required data for this survey was collected through particular checklists by referring to various
branches of the social security organization. The data then were evaluated by means of Excel and
software that had been designed for this purpose.
Result: In these three years 19.8 percent of all accidents happening for insured staff occurred in
Tehran. 3.1 percent of which led to death. This research showed that 7552 years of life and 3656
years of work were lost because of the occurrences of occupational accidents. Findings also
showed that human cost for each fatal occupational accident was 3.3 milliard Rials.
Conclusion: Reading the significant costs caused by occupational accidents, it is really
important to recognize the accidents’ causes, control the rate of them and provide sufficient and
appropriate occupational health and safety services.