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The Impact of OSHA Inspections on Lost Time Injuries in Manufacturing
Pennsylvania Manufacturing, 1998-2005
This study examines the effects on lost-time injuries of OSHA inspections at manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania from 1998 to 2005. It finds that inspections with penalties reduced injuries by an average of 19-24 percent annually in the two years following the inspection. These preventive effects were not found for workplaces with fewer than 20 or more than 250 employees or for inspections without penalties. Given the uniformity of federal OSHA inspection practices, the authors believe that these findings should be generalizable at least to the 29 states where federal OSHA directly operates the enforcement system. The effects they find here are similar to those found in a national study of inspections from 1992-98, which suggests that the decline in the impact of inspections from the late 1970s through 1998 may have leveled off.
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The research in this report was prepared for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and conducted by the RAND Center for Safety and Health in the Workplace.
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