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Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright Author's personal copy Safety Science 51 (2013) 217–222 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Safety Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci Focusing on coal miners’ occupational disease issues: A comparative analysis between China and the United States ⇑ Hong Chen , Qun Feng, Ruyin Long, Hui Qi School of Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221116, PR China article info abstract Article history: The trend in Chinese coal miners’ occupational diseases in the last ten years was studied by comparison Received 14 November 2011 with US reference data. It showed that the legally recorded occupational diseases of American coal miners Received in revised form 12 May 2012 had a wider range than that of China. Even so, the total number of occupational diseases and the number Accepted 30 June 2012 of occupational diseases per million tons of coal produced in Chinese coal mines were 32.9, 18.3 times higher than those in the US. In addition, the number of cases of coal miners’ occupational disease was, on average, 54.08% of the total number of cases in industry as a whole, which was 12.6 times more than Keywords: that in the US. The occupational disease rate per thousand coal miners in China recently increased, and Occupational diseases reached a new peak in 2010, while showing a downward trend in the US. Pneumoconiosis was the main Chinese coal miner Ten-year tendency occupational disease of Chinese coal miners with over 75%. In 2008, 2009, and 2010, the number of coal The occupational disease rate per million miners suffering from pneumoconiosis reached 4311, 5997 and 12,208, respectively, and accounted for tons 78.79%, 79.95% and 87.41% of the total occupational diseases, respectively. Compared to the US, Chinese The occupational disease rate per thousand coal miners were in a much worse occupational disease status. Based on US experience, some improve- coal miners ment strategies were proposed. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction rapid economic development in China, many workers still work in very tough environments and have high labour intensity Coal is an important component of world energy supply, and ac- (Hämäläinen et al., 2006). Besides, the legitimate rights and inter- counts for 29.25% of the world’s primary energy consumption. Coal ests of coal miners who suffer from occupational disease are not production is greatly influenced by geological conditions and guaranteed. Chinese coal miners’ occupational diseases are a seri- disasters. The production conditions are tough, and there is a high ous issue. Occupational diseases seriously damage coal miners’ rate of both accidents and occupational injuries. Globally, 1000 lives, health, and restrict the healthy development of coal industry. workers lost their lives and about 960,000 workers got hurt in However, in other important coal producing countries, such as 2003 by workplace accidents (Hämäläinen et al., 2009). In China, the US, Australia, and South Africa, the coal industry is no longer coal has an important position in the national economic develop- included in the high-risk categories. Taking the US as an example, ment, and since 2005, coal contributed more than 70% of the pri- according to statistical data the percentage of coal mine accidents mary energy consumption (NBSC, 2011). There are more than in America is only 4% of the total industrial accidents, ranked as 15,000 coal mines and 5.5 million coal miners in China. The Chi- 6th, while that of the retail industry is 5.6%. The number of coal nese coal miners’ accident mortality accounts for 70% of the global miners’ occupational diseases has been less than 200 for the past coal miners’ deaths. So far coal mines’ accidents in China have at- six years. Occupational health issues have been brought into the tracted much attention in society, but little attention has been paid basic worker rights protections. to the current high risk status of Chinese coal miners’ occupational The protection of workers’ lives and health is an important sign diseases. Similarly, occupational injuries issue has been discussed of progress and civilisation of a country. The US is not only the sec- in some literatures (Pavlic et al., 2011, 2012), while few researches ond largest coal producing country but also a country with sound focusing on occupational diseases issue specially. occupational safety management systems and mature coal safety In China, more than 2.65 million coal miners work within dusty management experience, which is typically representative and atmospheres, and more than 6000 workers die of pneumoconiosis worth using as reference. The paper takes the US as a basis for com- every year (Zheng, 2010). Behind the rapid development of China’s parison to discuss occupational disease issues of coal miners. It will economy, the cost to coal miners’ lives and health is huge. With help to highlight the coal miners’ occupational disease status in China, and to obtain useful experience from the US. Based on statistical data on occupational diseases from 2001 to ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 13372210769; fax: +86 51683884573. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Chen). 2010, for both China and the US, the research selectively analysed 0925-7535/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2012.06.025 Author's personal copy 218 H. Chen et al. / Safety Science 51 (2013) 217–222 Table 1 Occupational diseases case load each year and the percentage of coal miners case load from 2001 to 2010. Year US China The number of coal Total number of The percentagea The number of coal Total number of The miners’ occupational occupational miners’ occupational occupational percentagea diseases cases diseases cases diseases cases diseases cases 2001 424 5915 7.16 8403 13218 63.57 2002 431 5534 7.78 10483 14821 70.73 2003 323 5575 5.79 6138 10467 58.64 2004 232 5764 4.02 4840 9308 52.00 2005 171 5734 2.98 7348 12212 60.17 2006 137 5840 2.34 6451 11519 56.00 2007 152 5657 2.68 6751 14296 47.22 2008 151 5214 2.89 5472 13744 39.81 2009 155 4551 3.40 7501 18128 41.38 2010 172 4340 3.96 13966 27240 51.27 a Note: The percentage = the number of coal miners occupational diseases cases/the number of all the occupational diseases cases. the trends in occupational diseases case load, occupational disease 16000 rates per million tons and per thousand coal miners, main types of 13966 14000 occupational diseases and injury features, and then related 12000 improvement strategies were proposed. In the paper, the datasets 10483 10000 from China were carefully collected from the government websites 7348 8000 6751 of the Chinese Ministry of Health (CMH) and National Bureau of 8403 6138 7501 6000 6451 Statistics of China (NBSC). The datasets from the US were collected 4840 5472 from the websites of Mine Safety and Health Administration 4000 (MSHA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration 2000 424 431 323 232 171 137 152 151 155 172 (OSHA). More attention was paid to the reliability of the data 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 source and the integrity and comparability of the data when they were extracted. number of American coal miners’ occupational diseases cases number of Chinese coal miners’ occupational diseases cases 2. Comparative analysis of China–US coal miners’ occupational Fig. 1. Ten-year tendency of the case load of coal miners’ occupational diseases in diseases China and the US. 2.1. Comparative analysis of the occupational diseases case load tendency in 2001–2010 occupational diseases high, but also little attention is paid to it in management practice. The occupational disease cases show a trend From 2001 to 2010, the occupational diseases caseload for each of ‘‘quantity enlarging’’. year, and the percentage of coal miners’ case load, both in China Third, in China, the number of coal miners’ occupational dis- and the US1 are shown in Table 1. eases represented 54.08% of the total number of occupational dis- First, the number of Chinese coal miners’ occupational disease eases in all industries, on average, which was 12.6 times more than cases was 32.9 times more than that of the US, on average, from that of the US. The number was also the highest of all the indus- 2001 to 2010. After 2005, the number in the US was less than tries. Chinese coal miners have been at the absolute greatest risk 200 each year, while the number in China was much larger, even of occupational diseases. After a stable stage with a slight decline 81 times more than that of the US in 2010. from 2001 to 2007, it showed an obvious upward trend from Second, the caseload tendency also shows different features. It 2008 to 2010, with percentages of 39.81%, 41.38% and 51.27%, is shown in Fig.