Injuries in Child Laborers in the Informal Sector in Mexico City, Mexico, 1997

Details

• Personal Author:
  Baron, Sherry L.
• Description:
  In the mid-1990s, I was on a temporary assignment through the Pan American Health Organization to Mexico City. During my assignment, I oversaw a collaborative training program in occupational and environmental epidemiology between the Pan American Health Organization and the Mexican Secretary of Health. Through this training program, one student, Dr. Zoila López Sibaja, developed a pilot project to better characterize work-related injuries to children employed in the informal sector. The growth of the informal employment sector throughout the developing world has the potential to place workers and especially child labor at particularly high risk for work-related injuries. According to the International Labour Organization, in Latin America during the 1990s, the urban informal sector was the primary generator of new jobs. The informal sector is defined by the International Labour Organization as either self-employed workers and their unpaid family members, or workers (either paid or unpaid) in very small businesses (fewer than 5-10 workers), apprentices, contract labor, home workers, and paid domestic workers. The employment conditions of informal workers are based mostly on casual employment relations rather than contractual arrangements with formal labor protections, such as protection under child labor laws. A small but important part of the informal employment sector is street children. Street children is a term used for child laborers who work and live in the street and may or may not maintain contact with their families. Although street children face many health risks ranging from violence to drug use, an important priority is protecting them from working conditions that may damage their health and well-being, especially work-related injuries. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Age Factors Aging Demography Epidemiology Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Public Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Staff Development

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• Keywords:
  Age-factors Age-groups Children Demographic-characteristics Injuries Injury-prevention Occupational-hazards Occupational-health Public-health Risk-analysis Risk-factors Training Worker-health Workers

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• ISSN:
  0033-3549
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  120
• Issue:
  6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20028785
• Citation:
  Public Health Rep 2005 Nov-Dec; 120(6):598-600
• Contact Point Address:
  Sherry L. Baron, MD, Coordinator for Priority Populations and Health Disparities, NIOSH, 4676 Columbia Parkway, MS R-13, Cincinnati, OH 45226
• Email:
  sbaron@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2006
• NORA Priority Area:
  Work Environment and Workforce: Special Populations
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Public Health Reports
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0f69c977ff629bbc2e3cce17d3f7697af6ab8651f1b9e1bbd0ce3affa920f99bfc3dcbe8ef8e9596250c6a8aa91dcbfe3e1a4204f43bb6ee2397b7644711deb3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/189914/cdc_189914_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 61.56 KB ]