Tuesday, September 8th, 2026 — Connecticut recorded 4,264 occupational disease reports through the Workers’ Compensation Commission in 2024, an 18% decline from the previous year, according to the state’s newly released annual occupational disease report. Musculoskeletal disorders remained the largest category, accounting for 2,022 reports, or 47% of the Commission total.
The report, prepared by Tim Morse, Ph.D., professor emeritus at UConn Health, compares occupational illness data from three systems that use different definitions and reporting methods. Along with the Workers’ Compensation Commission’s First Reports of Injury, it examines the Bureau of Labor Statistics/Connecticut Department of Labor survey and the Occupational Illnesses and Injury Surveillance System, which includes laboratory reports of adult blood lead cases. The systems are presented separately because their results cannot be treated as a single case count.
The BLS/CTDOL survey estimated about 2,800 occupational illness cases in Connecticut during 2024, down 20% from 3,500 in 2023. The corresponding illness rate fell 22.3%, to 20.9 cases per 10,000 workers. Despite the decline, Connecticut’s rate was 26% higher than the U.S. rate of 16.6 and ranked ninth highest among 45 states and territories with publishable data. The report cautions that BLS figures are survey estimates and that chronic occupational diseases may be undercounted because they are not always recognized or reported as work-related.
Claims patterns differed considerably by condition and reporting system. Workers’ Compensation Commission reports of musculoskeletal disorders fell 21% from 2023, while infectious disease reports declined 28% to 812. Those infectious disease reports included 678 bloodborne pathogen exposures, 67 COVID-19 reports, 15 tuberculosis-related reports and 15 Lyme disease or tick-bite reports. OIISS physician reporting moved in the opposite direction, recording 1,150 infectious disease reports, up 24%.
The Workers’ Compensation Commission data also show substantial differences among industries. Manufacturing had the highest occupational disease rate among the major sectors at 47.5 cases per 10,000 workers, followed by education and health at 35.1, government at 34.6 and transportation and utilities at 28.1. Workers ages 55 to 64 had the highest age-specific rate, at 33.4 cases per 10,000 workers. Women represented 47% of Commission reports overall and 72% of infectious disease reports.
For claims professionals, the data provide a detailed view of the occupational conditions reaching Connecticut’s workers’ compensation system. The distinction among reporting systems is especially relevant when evaluating trends. A decline in First Reports of Injury does not necessarily mean every occupational disease category is declining across other surveillance sources, and differences in definitions prevent direct comparisons of some categories.
Connecticut released a separate prevention guide alongside the surveillance report. It is aimed at joint labor-management health and safety committees, which most Connecticut employers with 25 or more employees, as well as certain smaller employers with high injury rates, are required to maintain. The guide recommends workplace inspections, reviews of injury and illness data, incident and near-miss investigations, corrective-action tracking and worker participation in identifying hazards.
Prevention recommendations address musculoskeletal disorders, chemical hazards, infectious diseases, indoor air quality, occupational skin disease, hearing loss and noise, job stress and Total Worker Health. The guide generally follows the hierarchy of controls, putting hazard elimination and substitution ahead of engineering and administrative controls and treating personal protective equipment as the last line of defense rather than the primary control.
Ergonomics receives particular attention given the volume of musculoskeletal disease. Recommended measures include adjustable workstations, mechanical lifting devices, reducing repetitive work and redesigning jobs to limit reaching and twisting. The guide also points employers and safety committees to tools such as the NIOSH Revised Lifting Equation and describes low- or no-lift approaches for health care settings.
For adjusters handling occupational disease claims, the surveillance data and prevention recommendations provide context for recurring exposure allegations and work-related conditions. They also identify the types of workplace records that may exist around a claim, including illness data, incident investigations, hazard assessments, chemical inventories, exposure assessments and safety committee activities. The guide calls for committees to track corrective actions and periodically evaluate whether controls are working.
