Workplace Injuries

The term workplace injury refers to any wound or damage to the human body as a consequence of an event or a series of events in the work environment. Events in this definition refer to the manner in which the injury was produced, such as a fall from a ladder or a series of events such as repetitive strain. Workplace injuries are often referred to in different ways—for example, industrial injuries, occupational accidents, unsafe working, and incidents—a number of which implicitly presuppose no causality (accidents), blame the victim (unsafe working), or communicate a façade of unbiased detachment (incidents). We use the term workplace injuries here because it most accurately describes the phenomenon.

In this entry, we first provide a simple way of classifying workplace injuries and ...