Racial Disparities in the Frequency of Workplace Injuries

Details

• Personal Author:
  Boden L ; Seabury, Seth A. ; Terp S
• Description:
  Study Objectives: Workplace injuries are a significant public health concern, and are known to lead to significant health care costs and productivity losses for millions of people each year. While it has been well established that there are significant disparities in health and economic opportunities across racial and ethnic divides, it is unknown whether minorities are more or less subject to workplace injury risk. Methods: This study used retrospective data on survey respondents age 18-64 from the 1996, 2001, 2004, and 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) published by the US Census Bureau. The SIPP is a national survey including data on demographics, labor market outcomes, disability status and cause of disability. We recorded data on self-reported health conditions limiting the type or amount of work and whether those conditions were reportedly due to work-related injuries. Additionally, we recorded whether the individual reported any workers' compensation income in the survey month. Because work-related injuries are dependent on employment, and there are known differences across racial groups in terms of employment outcomes, we estimated differences in injury frequency conditional on work exposure. Exposure was defined as years of potential work, based on the time from the survey year compared to the year in which respondents first worked six consecutive months or more. We used logistic regression to estimate the frequency of workplace injuries for whites, blacks, Hispanic and Latinos, and other racial groups conditional on age, sex, education and potential work exposure. We compared predicted injury risk for each racial group according to years of exposure holding other covariates at their mean values. Results: There were 221,403 respondents in the study sample, of which 25,829 (11.7%) reported any disability, 3,635 (1.6%) reported a disability from a work-related injury and 1,029 (0.5%) reported receiving workers' compensation benefits. Blacks were most likely to experience any disability (17.0%) and a disability due to a work-related injury (2.0%). Hispanics were least likely to have a disability from work-related injury but most likely to receive workers' compensation benefits. Adjusting for years of potential exposure, the injury risk was similar for all races at low level of exposure, but increased more for minorities as exposure increased. Conclusions: There are significant differences in the frequency of disabling workplace injuries and workers' compensation benefit receipt across racial and ethnic groups. More work is needed to understand the reasons why workplace injury risk differs across racial groups, and to understand how differences in workplace injury risk contribute to the observed economic and health disparities. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Demography Healthcare Disparities Minority Health Morbidity Occupational Health Occupational Injuries Race Factors Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety
• Keywords:
  Demographic Characteristics Disabled Workers Health Disparities Injuries Minority Health Morbidity Rates Occupational Accidents Racial Factors Risk Factors
• ISSN:
  0196-0644
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  66
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20052935
• Citation:
  Ann Emerg Med 2015 Oct; 66(4)(Suppl):S65-S66
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• Performing Organization:
  University of Southern California, Los Angeles
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20140901
• Source Full Name:
  Annals of Emergency Medicine
• Supplement:
  Supplement
• End Date:
  20170531
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1d849216f818c37b764a1cf77cbbaa8afef7e5033cf516955684d5b0626694741d09229362df15e8f6e8db57be5c283a61d3d23106488fa9fc5739a2c4ca47d8
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/215836/cdc_215836_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 305.19 KB ]