The US National Safety Council (NSC) presented an analysis at the 2026 NSC Safety Congress & Expo that directly links OSHA’s ten most frequently cited workplace safety standards to serious injury and fatality outcomes. The NSC based its findings on 2024 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Falls, hazardous substances and machinery as leading causes of death
Falls represent the largest risk category: in 2024, 844 US workers died in fall-related incidents, 666 of them from falls to a lower level. Exposure to hazardous substances without proper hazard communication caused 50 worker deaths and 29,380 days-away/restricted/transferred (DART) cases in 2023-2024. Lockout/tagout failures were linked to 44 deaths and 16,590 DART cases; electrical exposure specifically to 130 deaths and 6,010 DART cases. Inadequate machine guarding proved the heaviest category by DART figures: 213 deaths and 84,950 DART cases in 2023-2024. Insufficient respiratory protection led to 65,300 reportable cases, inadequate eye/face protection to 95,490 DART cases, and failures involving powered industrial trucks (such as forklifts) to 84 deaths and 25,110 DART cases.
Data as a starting point for prevention
Beyond the top 10 most-cited standards, the NSC also points to other major causes of workplace death: 1,937 deaths from transportation incidents, 733 from workplace violence (470 homicides and 263 suicides), 756 from contact with objects, and 946,290 DART cases from overexertion. NSC CEO Lorraine Martin stressed the human weight behind the figures: “Every workplace fatality represents a person who should have returned home safely” at day’s end. For EHS professionals worldwide, the figures underscore that classic core hazards — falls, machine safety, hazardous substances and personal protection — still carry the greatest impact, even where regulation has existed for decades.
Source: NSC Reveals Major Injury and Fatality Events Associated with OSHA’s Top 10 Safety Violations, September 21, 2026
