WorkSafeBC, British Columbia’s workers’ compensation authority, has released new statistics revealing that occupational disease has consistently ranked as the leading cause of work-related fatalities in the province since 2009, when it overtook traumatic injuries.

The organization’s annual report on B.C. occupational health and safety statistics, published on Sept. 30, stated that in 2014 alone, 57 per cent of occupational deaths in the province had resulted from work-related diseases. The same year also saw 77 deaths resulting from asbestos-related diseases in B.C. – an increase from 59 in 2013 – amounting to more than one death every five days on average.

The report also revealed that the rate of work-related traumatic injuries causing death had decreased by 68 per cent in B.C. over the previous 25 years, while the rate of deaths from occupational illnesses had steadily increased. WorkSafeBC cited exposure to asbestos as a significant cause of the latter group of fatalities, elaborating that many of the deaths from diseases had resulted from asbestos exposures from past decades.

“Every death at a workplace has a far-reaching effect on the families, friends and co-workers left behind,” Al Johnson, WorkSafeBC’s vice president of prevention services, said in a press statement regarding the new statistics. “WorkSafeBC continues to work with all its industry partners to prevent work-related deaths from injury or disease in B.C. workplaces.”

Every issue of WorkSafeBC’s annual reports highlights a specific issue, and the new, 152-page edition for 2014 statistics focused on work-related fatalities in B.C. In a section titled “Work-Related Deaths”, the report compared the five-year periods from 1990 to 2014; while occupational deaths from injuries decreased from 437 in the period from 2005 to 2009 to 337 in that from 2010 to 2014, deaths from work-related disease rose from 331 in the former to 398 in the latter.

In addition, asbestos exposure alone ranked as the highest cause of occupational deaths in B.C. in 2007 and every year since 2009. In 2005-2006 and 2008, traumatic injuries ranked higher.

A press release from WorkSafeBC about the new data quoted Tracy Ford, co-founder of the Asbestos-related Research, Education and Advocacy Fund, whose father died from mesothelioma less than 20 years after exposure to asbestos at work.

“My dad, Dave, was an electrician in Powell River and loved his job. He always put safety first,” said Ford. “If he had known about the dangers of asbestos and which products contained asbestos, he would have taken precautions. When he retired, he expected to have many healthy years ahead of him.”

The overall rate of work-related deaths in B.C. has declined by 42 per cent since 1990, the report also noted.