Disparities in Unintentional Occupational Injury Mortality between High-Income Countries and Low- and Middle-Income Countries: 1990⁻2016.

Yue Wu,Guoqing Hu,David Schwebel

doi:10.3390/ijerph15102296

Abstract

Objective: Using estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, we examined differences in unintentional occupational injury mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 between high-income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods: Unintentional occupational injury mortality rates were obtained through the GBD online visualization tool. We quantified mortality changes over time for common external causes of injury for ages 15–49 years and 50–69 years separately in HICs and LMICs using negative binomial regression models. Results: In 2016, there were 24,396 and 303,999 unintentional occupational injury deaths among individuals aged 15 to 69 years in HICs and LMICs, respectively, corresponding to 3.1 and 7.0 per 100,000 people. Between 1990 and 2016, unintentional occupational injury mortality for people aged 15–69 years dropped 46% (from 5.7 to 3.1 per 100,000 people) in HICs and 42% in LMICs (from 13.2 to 7.0 per 100,000 people). Sustained and large disparities existed between HICs and LMICs for both sexes and both age groups during 1990–2016 (mortality rate ratio: 2.2–2.4). All unintentional occupational injury causes of death displayed significant reduction with one exception (ages 15–49 years in HICs). Country-specific analysis revealed large variations in unintentional occupational injury mortality and changes in occupational injury mortality between 1990 and 2016. Conclusions: Despite substantial decreases in mortality between 1990 and 2016 for both HICs and LMICs, a large disparity continues to exist between HICs and LMICs. Multifaceted efforts are needed to reduce the disparity.

Highlights

Most of them high-income, data are generally considered to be of high quality [20] and indicate that occupational injury mortality varies across high-income countries (HICs), ranging from 3.6 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers in the United
Our results show over 92% of unintentional occupational injury deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in
A recent survey illustrates the gap in the percentage of workers with access to occupational health services (OHS) between LMICs and HICs [28]; coverage is generally low in LMICs like Brazil (26%), China (10%), and India (

Summary

Introduction

Prevention of occupational injury forms a central component of a “decent work” environment, and it is widely recognized that no country demonstrates a high level of competitiveness and productivity while maintaining poor safety records for its workers [2]. Previous research has estimated occupational injury mortality at national [3,4,5,6,7,8], regional [9,10], and global levels [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. Most of them high-income, data are generally considered to be of high quality [20] and indicate that occupational injury mortality varies across high-income countries (HICs), ranging from 3.6 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers in the United.

Methods

Results

Conclusion