Bureau of Labor Statistics programs

Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII)

The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) is a nationwide annual survey used to measure injury and illness incidence rates in the workplace. Each year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) randomly selects a representative sample of Oregon employers to participate. The BLS team at Oregon DCBS is available to help with any questions or concerns regarding your selection and participation in the BLS SOII survey.

Employer Help for the 2025 Survey of Occupational Injuries & Illnesses

Notice about Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses data

For more than 50 years, DCBS has had an agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to administer the SOII through a federal grant. In February 2025, BLS said it was changing the “Gender" data field to “Sex" and kept the same field values (male/female). Also, BLS redefined the “Gender" fields as “Sex" in some prior year reports. 

This federal change caused several concerns:  

• BLS made this change in the middle of the data collection period. This means some Oregonians have submitted data as “Gender" before the change and others will submit data as “Sex" after the change. So, two different categories of data are being reported as one. This is a violation of basic research ethics.
• BLS intends to report all data from both fields as “Sex," regardless of the name of the field at the time the survey was submitted. This misrepresents prior year reports.
• This change disregards individual gender identities to the extent they identify as either male or female. The BLS data system does not allow DCBS to add other gender identity types.

BLS rejected our requests to reverse this change; refrain from publishing the data from this field to the federal website; and change back to “Gender" for prior year reports.

We are disheartened by the response from BLS. However, DCBS believes this survey still provides valuable data to organizations promoting worker safety. Oregon data will be published to the federal BLS website.

Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) Program

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in conjunction with participating state agencies, including Oregon DCBS, administers the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries program. Survey staff members collect and disseminate detailed information on all work-related fatal injuries in the United States.

The knowledge acquired from CFOI data produces a foundation for occupational fatality prevention. Policy analysts, safety and health professionals, university researchers, union organizations, trade organizations, the media, government agencies, safety equipment manufacturers, and concerned employers and workers can use CFOI data and information to better understand working conditions. Each group contributes to the occupational safety and health information knowledge base. This information repository facilitates courses of action to prevent occupational fatalities.

Beginning with the 2019 tables, the Bureau of Labor Statistics initiated suppression rules to protect CFOI data from secondary disclosure. The result is fewer publishable tables and fewer rows of data in the published tables.