Drug overdoses are a deadly reality for many communities across North America. They are also shockingly prevalent in the workplace.

Two years ago (which is the last year for which we have a full set of data), unintentional overdoses from drugs or alcohol accounted for 9.7% of all workplace fatalities—nearly one-in-ten people who died on the job did so because of an overdose. And while Injury Facts shows that there is an overall decrease in workplace fatality rates, the number of unintentional overdose deaths on the job has increased every single year for the past decade, with over 500 workplace overdose fatalities in the last year on record. 

Safety issues like driving, lockout/tagout and falls from heights garner a lot of attention in the pages of safety magazines, and with good reason—they are major causes of serious injuries and fatalities. But they tend to overshadow overdoses, which are one of the fastest-growing types of fatal incidents. Since 2011, the number of deadly overdoses has increased by over 600%. As Injury Facts notes, “Increases have been experienced among all employee demographics, industries, and occupations.”

Of course, overdose deaths aren’t strictly confined to the workplace, with over 105,000 people in the United States dying from drug-involved overdoses in the last year on record. Overdoses from opioids and other substances are a complicated issue, with a number of individual and social factors influencing the likelihood of drug and alcohol use.

Any way you look at it, overdoses are a capital-P Problem. They’re a problem at work, they’re a problem at home, and there is no single solution that will make the issue go away. But given how many people die on the job because of overdoses, it’s a challenge that has obvious implications for safety managers. There is also an undeniable connection between workplace safety outcomes and overdose deaths, both at work and in the community.

In the past five years, there have been two studies that found that workplace injuries are a major driver of overdose deaths. While both studies were conducted independently of each other, they reached substantially similar conclusions about the close ties between safety outcomes on the job and the risk of overdose deaths in the months and years following an injury.

The first study reviewed three years of insurance claims. It found that the hazard of opioid morbidity was 2.91 times higher for workers who suffered a lost-time injury than for workers who were uninjured. To put it another way, injuries that force someone to miss time at work nearly triple the worker’s risk of a fatal opioid overdose. The study concluded that “Reducing workplace injury or severity of workplace injury, as well as efforts to ensure appropriate opioid prescribing for injured workers, may help to reduce the societal costs of opioid use.”

The second study discovered that the majority of prescription pain relievers, such as opioids, were used to alleviate chronic pain, and that this pain often originated from the workplace. As the study authors offer in an aside, “Attending to conditions of work may have significant potential for effective public health action to combat the opioid crisis.” The study goes on to point out that “57% of opioid-related overdose deaths occurred after a work injury, with 13% of overdose deaths preceded by a work injury within the past 3 years of death.” All told, it’s clear that workplace injuries can be a significant factor in the number of overdose deaths that occur at work and beyond.

The rising number of fatal overdoses is a clarion call for more active safety leadership on the issue. Educating workers on overdose deaths and providing naloxone kits are two steps that safety professionals and organizational leaders can take to cut down on the risk of deadly overdoses in the workplace. Based on the findings of the studies cited above, taking additional steps to reduce injuries can also go a long way to prevent not only an initial incident but also a secondary overdose tragedy.

For workplaces that have covered all the standard compliance measures and have established a safety management system, it may seem like the employer has all the bases covered and there is no obvious route to further injury reduction. That’s where human factors management comes in.

Mental and physical states like rushing, frustration and fatigue are an influence in a disproportionate number of workplace incidents. So it stands to reason that getting better at managing human factors in the workplace—from teaching workers more personal safety skills to improving supervisors’ ability to recognize human factors in their team—will lead to fewer injuries and fewer resultant overdose incidents.

It’s overly simplistic to think that human factors management is a silver bullet for overdose deaths. There are simply too many contributing factors to the issue for that to be the case. However, using human factors to reduce injuries is another weapon in the arsenal to help fight back against opioids and other substances. It’s also a great way to reduce injuries and improve employees’ situational awareness.

At the very least, it’s worth recognizing the strong links between injuries and overdoses. A clearer picture of one of the primary causes of drug and alcohol use can make it easier to take both small and large steps to mitigate the risk of fatal overdoses in the workplace.