Use of capture-recapture method to improve the notification of fatal occupational injuries records in Belo Horizonte city, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, 2011.

Objective: to measure underreporting of typical fatal occupational injuries (FOI) on the Mortality Information System (SIM) in Belo Horizonte city, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, in 2011.

Methods: the capture-recapture method was used to assess all FOI recorded among city residents and/or occurring in the city, using probabilistic linkage of three data sources: SIM, the Notifiable Diseases Information System (SINAN) and the Belo Horizonte Forensic Medicine Institute Autopsy Database.

Results: the majority of the 54 cases found occurred in males (n=53), with drivers and construction workers accounting for half of them (n=28); the most common causes of death were traffic accidents (n=18) and falls (n=10); 15 deaths were underreported on SIM.

[Evaluation of the strategy for identification and measurement of the fatal accidents at work].

In order to evaluate the strategy used by the Municipal Health Department of Belo Horizonte (SMSA/BH) for reducing the under-reporting of deaths from work-related accidents during the years of 2008 to 2010, a deterministic comparison of data on deaths from work-related accidents as reported in SINAN and SIM was conducted. As a complementary strategy to the deterministic comparison, the Investigation Data Sheets and Death Certificates were analyzed, which although not clearly declared, were suspected of involving death by work-related accident. Death from work accident was confirmed when the same victim, same accident, with a temporal connection between accident and death, were matched.