Ensuring social data's reliability is essential in accurately evaluating social and economic impacts across geographical locations, economic sectors and stakeholder categories. Yet, the MRIO model utilized in our research (EXIOBASE) was hindered by out-of-date or significantly proxy fatality statistics, causing potential inaccuracies in our findings. We have comprehensively revised EXIOBASE fatality data to address this shortcoming, incorporating detailed, nation-specific, and up-to-date data. The update includes work-related fatal occupational injuries as well as fatalities associated with occupational exposure to a variety of 17 hazardous substances and conditions such as asbestos, arsenic, benzene, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, diesel engine exhaust, formaldehyde, nickel, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, silica, sulfuric acid, trichloroethylene, asthmagens, particulate matter, gases and fumes, noise and ergonomic factors. Our methodological process is built on three pillars: data acquisition, raw data processing, and computation of fatal injuries by country, gender, year, and EXIOBASE economic sector.
Data were sourced from the World Health Organization (WHO) (Pega et al., 2021) and Eurostat databases (Publications Office of the European Union, 2013). The WHO data was carefully screened based on specific criteria such as age above 15 years, gender, and fatal injuries only. Eurostat data provided granular information on work-related fatalities, classified by economic activities in the European Community (or NACE Rev.2 (Eurostat, 2008)). The WHO provided aggregate fatality data for 2010 and 2016. The strategy for allocating these deaths across Eurostat categories depended on the countries' geographical location, with different methods applied to European and non-European nations.
For European nations, fluctuations in fatality numbers within a NACE Rev.2 sector mirrored the changes registered by Eurostat. For non-European countries, fatality figures were proportionally allocated across economic sectors split according to the NACE Rev.2 classification, reflecting the workforce size associated with each economic sector. Due to the scarcity of data for nations within Asia, America, or Africa, we adopted a regional approach, computing fatality ratios over each NACE Rev.2 category for each region by integrating data for available countries over a reference year. For 2010 and 2016, the aggregate fatality figures for nations within these three zones were es...