Dramatic Increase in Workplace Overdose Deaths

(Spring 2018) More than 200 workplace fatalities occurred in 2016 due to an accidental overdose of alcohol or nonmedical drugs. This is a 32% increase over 2015’s statistics in the same category. Sadly, this trend is not new, as the amount of deadly workplace incidents related to overdoses has risen by a minimum of 25% each year since 2012. With the rampant opioid crisis cutting across demographics, however, it only follows that overdoses would spill into the workplace as well.

Fatalities in the hospitality industry rose by almost a third and reached a record high in 2016, mainly due to a 40% spike in on-the-job deaths in the restaurant and bar sector.

In 2016 nationwide drug overdose mortalities climbed over 64,000, and to aid states in the fight, President Trump issued a national public health emergency for opioid addiction in October 2017. The U.S. Department of Labor is also pledging to help curb opioid use, recognizing it is a serious problem in the workplace. At the same time, however, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently began reducing its disclosure of American workplace deaths as part of an initiative to contain the quantity of on-the-job accident data supplied to the public.

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