Perspective on New Evidence Showing Injury Under-Reporting Among Precarious Workers

Details

• Personal Author:
  Rosenman, Kenneth D.
• Description:
  Surveillance data are essential to identify and target prevention for all public health activity, including occupational safety and health. Accurate and timely surveillance data are needed to identify new hazards, monitor prevention activity, plan interventions and to evaluate the efficacy of these interventions. All occupational health specialists need to understand the limitations of the surveillance data available to them in order to make the best use of the data in their work. The inadequacies of the surveillance system for nonfatal work-related injuries and illnesses in the USA have been well documented. On the other hand, some European countries with their national compensation programmes (eg, the Nordic countries) and labour force surveys (eg, UK) have been looked to as models to follow to improve non-fatal work-related injury and illness surveillance. The paper by Kreshpaj et al in this current issue and the previous recent publication from the same authors show the Swedish system has deficiencies in providing accurate surveillance data that, not surprisingly, are even greater in precarious workers without job security. The Swedish studies used capture-recapture methodology to look at overlap between two databases: Information System on Occupational Injuries (ISA), that has data on work related injuries and illnesses reported by employers; and data from the AFA, a mutual insurance company, which mainly insures employees covered by collective bargaining agreements and receives reports from individual employees. The previous study from the same authors concluded that the official Swedish statistics which are based on employer reporting missed 25% of non-fatal work-related injuries and illnesses. Kreshpaj et al paper in this current issue showed that the magnitude of missing occupational injuries was 50% greater in precarious workers as compared with all workers. Given the limitations of the Kreshpaj et al analysis, which required the exclusion of non-unionised workers and the self-employed, the magnitude of the true under-reporting is certainly larger. Although there are many differences in the systems to count work-related injuries and illnesses in the various European countries, there is no reason why the underreporting identified in Sweden is not emblematic of problems throughout all the European countries. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Database Occupational Health Public Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Databases Data Processing Information Systems Occupational Safety And Health Public Health Recordkeeping Surveillance
• ISSN:
  1351-0711
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Michigan ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-2
• Volume:
  79
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20063978
• Citation:
  Occup Environ Med 2022 Jan; 79(1):1-2
• Contact Point Address:
  Professor Kenneth D Rosenman, Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
• Email:
  rosenman@msu.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Performing Organization:
  Michigan State University
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8d7c6e51affb3d136dc5f5c8a7fc3433e026c9a39b46415a8e7e5279bc128a66f030afc1ef400d328b6a1e820ef081aeb021f9d318b5fcff7676a841f5b83d28
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/222508/cdc_222508_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 249.41 KB ]