Farm Injury Deaths and Workers' Compensation Claims in Australia and Their Economic Costs

Abstract

Objective

To describe the pattern and estimated direct economic burdens associated with unintentional deaths and injuries on Australian farms over the past 11 years (2013–2023).

Design

Descriptive retrospective epidemiological study of National Coronial Information System (NCIS) data for persons fatally injured on a farm and workers' compensation injuries data from the National Data Set.

Setting

Australia.

Participants

All agricultural cases involving fatal injury events and those being injured accessing workers compensation.

Main Outcome Measures

Nature of fatal and injury events, with estimates on the economic costs associated with deaths and workers' compensation injury claims costs.

Results

There were 748 farm fatalities, with 544 (73%) being work-related. From these, 513 (94%) of the cases occurred in males, with almost half (48%) in farmers aged 60 years or older. The leading agents for fatalities were tractors (n = 118), quad-bikes (n = 117) and farm utilities (n = 52). Costs for all fatalities (work and non-work), approached $1.8 billion in the 2013-2023 period (~$164 million per year). Work-related fatalities accounted for $1.24 billion of this total, with an annual cost of approximately $112 million. There were around 5000 workers' compensation injury claims processed per year during 2013–2021, costing over $1.5 billion (~$190 million per year).

Conclusion

The costs for all on-farm injury deaths and workers' compensation injury claims conjointly during the period of 2013–2023, includes a conservative annual estimate of $355 million per year. Of this sum, approximately $300 million involved work-related incidents. Although there is a modest progression in reducing farm deaths and injuries, targeted and evidence-based approaches are required to stimulate improvements in these preventable incidents.