Work-related injury claims 2017 data collection

Reference period This release contains provisional statistics for work-related claims for injuries in the 2017 calendar year. It also includes final statistics for injuries in the 2016 calendar year. Both of these are as reported by 23 April 2018. Data sources Data on claims for work-related injuries is from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). All claims are included under the calendar year when the injury occurred. 2017 figures are provisional; final figures for 2017 will be published in 2019. Claims for fatal work-related injuries can take up to two years to be finalised. Figures for the number of full-time equivalent (FTEs) are sourced from the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) and are used to calculate incidence rates. We also refer to figures from the 2013 Census and the HLFS within the release. Changes since the last release Error in previous release’s data In 2018, an error was found in which previously published data incorrectly included non-accepted claims, for claims made under the Accredited Employers Programme. The inclusion of these non-accepted claims caused the total number of claims made per year to be over counted by approximately 2.6% on average each year. This data has been revised and corrected for the injury data – work related claims: 2017 release. Consequently, the trend data reported in these tables have been updated and are now different to data previously published. Improved data quality for type of injury and body site of injury In 2018, there is improved data quality for Accredited Employers Programme (AEP) claims in two measures: type of injury and body site of the injury. Previously, all AEP data was recorded as ‘Other and undefined’ for type of injury and ‘Unobtainable’ for body site of the injury, due to data quality issues. Now AEP data is included in the breakdowns for type of injury and body site of injury for 2002–11 and 2015-2017. For 2012–14, this data is still not available and claims from AEP are recorded as ‘Other and undefined’ and ‘Unobtainable’, respectively. AEP claims use an additional category in body site of injury, stated as ‘Back except Head Vertebrae’. These claims are assigned to a category for body site of injury using the Read Code variable as reported by the treatment provider. Change in age category Due to growing interest in an ageing population the age group categories have been expanded this year. The category of ‘65 years and older’ has been split into two categories: ‘65-74 years old’ and ‘75 years and older’. Experimental industry tables Previous releases have only reported industry data in trend tables from 2009 onwards. This is because in 2008 ACC changed its industry classification codes from Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) 1996 to ANZSIC 2006. As a result, industry data was not comparable between these time periods. In 2018, an experimental series for work-related claims by industry for the Injury statistics – work-related claims: 2017 – trends tables for 2002–17 has been introduced. Industry Classification Unit (CU) is used by ACC for insurance purposes. It is a detailed description of business activities grouped by risk to determine the ACC levy rates employers pay and share the cost of injuries fairly. A concordance was used to approximate ANZSIC06 industry codes from industry classification units for years 2002-2008. This fills the gap in the data for 2002-2008, while providing comparable data for 2009-2017. This concordance was developed by ACC in 2017 to map classification units, levy risk groups, and level 1 industry codes by year to their current (2017 calendar year) equivalents for 2002–present. Using this approach industry could be mapped to ANZIC 2006 V1. This was deemed to be the most reliable approach, as it was the most consistent with current industry codes: one industry varied by 9%, five by +/- 1%, and figures were the same for thirteen of the nineteen industries. While this table provides a more complete time-series of work-related claims by industry, Stats NZ advise not to compare this experimental table to the original industry data presented. Comparability with previous work-related claims releases Due to various updates and revisions to the work-related claims data, we advise not to compare release publications between different years. These include: Error in previously released data ACC Accredited Employers Programme (AEP) claim information was added into the Injury data – work-related claims releases from 2015. In 2018, an error was found where claims made under AEP incorrectly included ‘non-accepted’ claims. The inclusion of these non-accepted claims caused the total number of claims made per year to be over counted by approximately 2.6% on average each year. This impacted the previous releases: Injury statistics - work-related claims: 2016, published 31 August 2017, Injury statistics - work-related claims: 2015, published 28 November 2015, Injury statistics - work-related claims: 2014, published 15 October 2015. The data has been revised and corrected for the injury data – work related claims: 2017 release. Consequently, the trend data reported in these tables have been updated and are now different to data previously published. As a result, we do not recommend comparing the results from Injury statistics – work-related claims: 2017 release with any previous releases. Household labour force survey redevelopment The Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) was redeveloped in 2016. Due to the HLFS redevelopment, caution should be used when comparing rates from before the redevelopment with rates after the redevelopment. See the HLFS redevelopment effect on incidence rates item for more information. en-NZ