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News Release USDL: 97-?
Friday, August 21, 1997
Contact: Frank Kane,(202) 219-8151

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will audit injury and illness records of 250 randomly-selected establishments participating in the OSHA Data Initiative.

The data quality audit program will check the accuracy of the l996 data submitted under the initiative as well as overall injury and illness recordkeeping practices.

"This program will help OSHA evaluate the accuracy and completeness of the data being submitted to the agency," said Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Gregory R. Watchman. "With reliable site-specific data on injuries and illnesses, OSHA can better direct its programs to protect the safety and health of America's workers."

Under OSHA's data initiative, about 80,000 establishments were asked to submit information on 1996 injuries and illnesses, together with the number of workers employed and the hours they worked.

The records audits will include:

• Comparing the information submitted to OSHA with the the employers' 1996 OSHA 200 Log and Summary of Injuries and Illnesses, employment and hours worked.

• Identifying recordable injury and illness cases and determining whether the establishment recorded them properly, under-recorded or over-recorded them.

• Interviewing the establishment's recordkeeper about the OSHA recordkeeping requirements and the establishment's recordkeeping practices.

• Compliance officers using the OSHA newly developed Recordkeeping Audit Assistant (ORAA) software system to record audit information. This software will be made available to the general public on OSHA's web site when it is finished.

Each audit will be treated as an OSHA inspection. Whenever OSHA recordkeeping violations are found, appropriate citations and penalties will be proposed. However, employers will not be cited for over-reporting of cases. OSHA will inform employers of any errors and the need to eliminate those cases from the OSHA 200 Log. Employers also will not be cited in this audit cycle for failure to submit data to OSHA or for discrepancies found in their data initiative submission compared to the establishment's OSHA 200 Log, employment and hours worked data.

OSHA plans to complete the 250 audits by December. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) required a data quality audit program to help evaluate the OSHA data initiative as a prerequisite to approval for OSHA collecting the injury and illness data.