Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries - Federal Government

Letter requesting source documents Attachment 2B

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State letterhead

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Dear:

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (PL 91-596) requires the Secretary of Labor to develop and maintain an effective program of collection, compilation, and analysis of occupational safety and health statistics. In response to the need for complete, accurate, and timely data for occupational fatalities occurring in the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in cooperation with (State Agency), implemented the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) in 1992. The CFOI has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB Number 1220-0133).

To ensure complete, up-to-date fatality information, we collect data from various sources:

• death certificates;

• Federal and State workers’ compensation reports;

• reports to Federal and State regulatory agencies;

• medical examiner and autopsy reports;

• highway and police reports; and

• other reports available to State agencies.

We would appreciate your assistance in collecting these data. We would like to receive, on a flow basis, copies of any documents or reports you receive concerning work-related fatalities. We may also request documents for fatalities identified by other sources as work-related to obtain additional information. We will use information contained on these documents to determine if the fatality occurred while the person was in a work status. The worker’s name, Social Security Number, date of birth, date of injury, date of death, and employer’s name are needed to match reports from other sources to ensure that each fatality is counted only once.

Your voluntary cooperation is needed to ensure the information we collect is complete and accurate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, its employees, agents, and partner statistical agencies, will use the information you provide for statistical purposes only and will hold the information in confidence to the full extent permitted by law. In accordance with the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (44 U.S.C. 3572) and other applicable Federal laws, your responses will not be disclosed in identifiable form without your informed consent. Per the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, Federal information systems are protected from malicious activities through cybersecurity screening of transmitted data.

Summary results will be made public to inform workers and employers about hazards in the workplace. Under written agreements to protect confidentiality and security of identifying information, a detailed data file will be made available to authorized researchers for conducting specific research projects. No personal or company identifiers will be released. Although we have taken every precaution to ensure the security of information collected under a pledge of confidentiality, it may be possible to recognize catastrophic or well-publicized events from the BLS releases.

[We would like to meet with you at your convenience to discuss this program in more detail.] Please call (State contact name) at (telephone number) if you have any questions regarding the fatality census or would like to schedule an appointment with us. If a more formal arrangement is needed to obtain these documents, please let us know and we would be happy to discuss the options with you, including a Memorandum of Understanding between our agencies.

Sincerely yours,

(State official’s name)