Although accurate numbers may be hard to attain, a number of public and private research studies have provided insight into the prevalence and nature of workplace violence. Understandably, fatal assaults create a high profile, but are only one manifestation of a much broader problem. Nonetheless, homicide is the second leading cause of death in the workplace and twenty workers are murdered each week in the United States. Most of these are in the course of a robbery or involve employees engaged in security work. High-risk occupations include taxi cab drivers, chauffeurs, law enforcement personnel, and retail workers.
Men are the most likely victims.
On the other hand, non-fatal assaults account for twenty times that of fatal ones. Most victims of non-fatal assaults are women, in particular those who are employed in the health industry where patients are likely to be the assailants. From a legal standpoint, injuries following an assault may be covered under workers' compensation statutes as long as the injury arose out of and in the course of employment. An employee may be compensable when an assault was in response to a dispute involving the work itself or the work brought the employee and assailant together creating conditions for the dispute. In other instances even personal disputes leading to an assault may be compensable when the workplace contributed to the strain or stress on the parties, or where the parties had no relationship outside the work.