Common Cold and Flu Exceptions in OSHA Work-Relatedness

The common cold and flu are never recordable: 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2)(viii) excludes them from work-relatedness even when caught at work. Other contagious diseases, such as tuberculosis, brucellosis, hepatitis A, or plague, are work-related if the employee was infected at work.

Not every workplace illness is an OSHA recordkeeping case.

An injury or illness is work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment caused or contributed to it, or significantly aggravated a pre-existing condition (29 CFR 1904.5). It is presumed for anything that happens in the work environment unless one of nine exceptions applies: the person was there as a member of the public; symptoms surfaced at work but came solely from a non-work event; voluntary wellness, fitness, or recreation; eating or drinking for personal consumption; personal tasks outside assigned working hours; personal grooming, self-medication for a non-work condition, or a self-inflicted injury; a motor vehicle accident in a company parking lot or access road while commuting; the common cold or flu; and mental illness, unless the employee voluntarily provides a qualified professional's opinion that it is work-related.

Apply OSHA work-relatedness exceptions before using the general recording criteria. Deciding work-relatedness after severity is the most common ordering mistake, and it pushes borderline cases onto the log, or off it, for the wrong reason. The fix is to settle where the employee was, what they were doing, and at whose direction before anyone discusses treatment or severity.

HR safety partners often hear the sensitive details first, so privacy handling and a clear line between HR files and the OSHA log matter most.

Teams record ordinary colds because symptoms appeared at work.

Work-relatedness is the first gate: a case that fails it never reaches the recording criteria, the 300A totals, or the rates. A case that passes still needs a recording criterion before it goes on the log.

• Specific workplace exposures can still require a closer illness analysis.
• When it is not obvious whether the event happened at work or away from it, evaluate the employee's duties and environment to decide whether work caused, contributed to, or significantly aggravated the condition (1904.5(b)(3)).

During flu season, eight employees in one office are out sick for several days. None of those cases are recorded, whatever the source. When a lab technician handling animal tissue develops brucellosis, that case is investigated and, if infected at work, recorded.

1. Identify the illness.
2. Apply the cold and flu exception where it fits.
3. For other contagious diseases, investigate the exposure.
4. Record if work-related and a criterion is met.

What to keep in the case file:

• What the employee was doing, where, and at whose direction
• Whether the location is part of the work environment
• Which exception you considered and the facts that support or rule it out
• For aggravation cases, the condition before the event and what changed after it

300log keeps the facts that decide work-relatedness (where the event happened, what the employee was doing just before, and what happened) in each case's 301 fields, right next to the log entry they support.

For a quick answer without an account, use the free recordability checker.

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