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Occupational Diseases in British Columbia, 1987-2011

The Occupational Diseases in British Columbia, 1987-2011 tables provide statistical information on claims arising from occupational diseases in British Columbia and accepted in the years 1987 to 2011. The claims are categorized by the type of disease; the exposure that led to the disease; industry; and the age, gender, and occupation of the worker.

The report includes the claims accepted in the period 1987 to 2011 for short-term disability benefits, long-term disability benefits, or survivor benefits. Claims reported but not accepted are not included in the report, neither are claims accepted for only health care or rehabilitation benefits.

The statistical summaries include counts of claims, days lost, and costs of claims. The costs include short-term disability (STD), long-term disability (LTD), and survivor benefits; they exclude health care and rehabilitation costs.

There are a number of classification conventions that are important to an interpretation of the data. One is that claims for conditions that start as asbestosis and become an asbestos-caused cancer are classified as cancer. Similarly, claims for compensable injuries that subsequently become cancer claims are classified as cancer.

Table of Contents for Occupational Diseases in British Columbia, 1987-2011

About the 1987-2011 tables

  • Claims uncoded to type of disease, exposure, or occupation have been proportionately allocated to the disease, exposure, and occupation categories.
  • The term “short-term disability” (STD) has replaced “wage loss”, and “long-term disability” (LTD) has replaced “permanent disability”.
  • The convention used to categorize compensable conditions into the two groups “injuries” and “diseases” slightly differs from the standard developed by the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada. For the purpose of this report, we have considered heart attack and related claims to be occupational diseases. We have also considered tenosynovitis and related claims arising from repetitive motion to be diseases, but we have excluded tenosynovitis and related claims arising from trauma. The tables in which the data is broken down by “Type of disease” provide a listing of the conditions considered to be diseases for the purpose of this report.
  • The convention used to classify a condition as poisoning, which is a disease in this report, has changed slightly. In previous versions of this report, some non-venomous bites from animals were considered as poisoning. All non-venomous bites are now excluded from this category. The change is reflected in these tables retroactively.
  • The compensation boards in Canada adopted new disease, exposure, and occupation coding standards in 1997. The disease categories shown in this report are based on both the pre-1997 and the post-1997 coding standards. The categories in the report have been created at a sufficiently high level so that they are comparable for the years before and after 1997. Similarly, exposure group and occupation group categories have been created in such a way that they are comparable before and after 1997.
  • There are tables for the period 2007-2011 that show more detail than the tables for earlier years. These more detailed tables are based on the new classification standards alone.
  • Note that claims can be counted in different ways so that caution should be used when comparing the claim counts in this report to claim counts in other WorkSafeBC reports. For example, in the report “Occupational Injuries by Accident Type and Occupation in British Columbia, 2002-2011”, short-term disability claims are counted by the year of occurrence of injury.
  • The coding on which this report is based is done by the Statistical Services group in the BIA department of WorkSafeBC. The code standards used for type of accident and for occupation are part of the NWISP (National Work Injuries Statistics Program) coding standard used by all the compensation boards in Canada. The code standard in use since 1997 for type of disease and exposure is CSAZ795, and the code standard in use for occupation since 1997 is the 1991 SOC (Standard Occupational Classification).

Further information regarding the tables in this report is available from the Statistical Services group in the BIA department of WorkSafeBC:

PO Box 5350
Vancouver, BC V6V 5L5
Phone: 604 276-3130
Fax: 604 276-3290