Worker Injury Rates Research Articles

Occupational fatalities among grounds maintenance workers in the United States (2016-2020).

In 2019, grounds maintenance work was ranked among the most dangerous jobs in the United States. The objective of this study was to provide a national profile of fatal injuries of grounds maintenance workers. Data from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries and Current Population Survey were analyzed to determine grounds maintenance worker fatality rates and rate ratios during 2016-2020. During the 5-year study period, a total of 1064 deaths, or average fatality rate of 16.64 deaths per 100,000 full-time employees (FTEs) was identified in grounds maintenance workers compared to 3.52 deaths per 100,000 FTEsfor all occupational worker deaths in the United States. The incidence rate ratio was 4.72 per 100,000 FTEs[95% CI:4.44-5.02; p < 0.0001]. The primary events or exposures that led to work-related deaths were transportation incidents (28.0%), falls (27.3%), contact with objects and equipment (22.8%), and traumatic acute exposures to harmful substances or environments (17.9%). Black or African American workers had higher death rates, while Hispanic or Latino workers accounted for over one-third of all occupational-related fatalities. Each year, fatal work injury rates were consistently nearly fivetimes higher among those employed in grounds maintenance work than all US worker fatalities. Wide-ranging safety intervention and prevention measures are needed to protect workers. Future research efforts should employ methods that include qualitative approaches to gain a better understanding of worker's perspectives and employer's operational work practices to mitigate risks that contribute to these high work-related fatalities.

The Relationship between Work-Related Stressors and Construction Workers’ Self-Reported Injuries: A Meta-Analytic Review

Mental health concerns are surging worldwide and workers in the construction industry have been found to be particularly vulnerable to these challenges. Stress, depression, addictions, suicides, and other key indicators of poor mental health have been found to be highly prevalent among construction workers. Critically, researchers have also found a link between how stress in the workplace impacts the overall safety performance of an individual. However, the burgeoning nature of the research has stifled the determination of feasible and actionable interventions on jobsites. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between work-related stressors found on construction jobsites and self-reported injury rates of workers. To accomplish this goal, a meta-analysis methodology was used, wherein a comprehensive literature search was conducted to identify key work-related stressors and questionnaires used in the construction industry’s safety domain to assess stress. Using a formal meta-analysis approach that leverages the findings from past studies, a more holistic determination of the relationship between work-related stressors and injury rates among workers was performed. Ninety-eight studies were reviewed, and seven were selected that fulfilled pre-determined validated inclusion criteria for eligibility in the meta-analysis. The results revealed 10 salient work-related stressors among construction workers. Of these ten, seven work-related stressors were identified as significant predictors of injury rates among workers: job control, job demand, skill demand, job certainty, social support, harassment and discrimination, and interpersonal conflicts at work. This study represents a significant first step toward formally identifying work-related stressors to improve working conditions, reduce or eliminate injuries on construction sites, and support future research.

They built this city—construction workers injured in Delhi, India: cross-sectional analysis of First Information Reports of the Delhi Police 2016–2018

BackgroundConstruction workers are 3–4 times more likely than other workers to die from accidents at work—however, in the developing world, the risks associated with construction work may be 6 times greater. India does not publish occupational injury statistics, and so little is known about construction workers injured. We aimed to use Indian police records to describe the epidemiology of construction site injuries in Delhi and to thus generate knowledge that may help to control the burden of injuries to construction workers in India and in other developing countries.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional analysis of accident records maintained by the Delhi Police. We included all construction workers reported to have been killed or injured in construction site accidents in Delhi during the period 2016–2018. We used multivariable logistic regression models to investigate associations between injury severity (fatal vs. non-fatal injury) and exposure variables whilst adjusting for a priori risk factors. We also estimated the number of Delhi construction workers in total and by trade to generate estimates of worker injury rates per 100,000 workers per year.ResultsThere were 929 construction site accidents within the study period, in which 1,217 workers and children were reported to have sustained injuries: 356 (29%) were fatal and 861 (71%) were non-fatal. One-eighth of injuries were sustained by females. Most occurred in the Rainy season; most were sustained during the construction of buildings. The most frequent causes were the collapse of an old building, the collapse of a new building under construction, and electric shocks. Electricians were more likely than unskilled workers to suffer a fatal injury (adjOR 2.5; 95% CI: 0.87–6.97), and there were more electrical shocks than electricians injured. The odds of a fatal injury were statistically significantly lower in Central districts than in the less developed, peripheral districts.ConclusionsConstruction site injuries are an unintended health impact of urbanisation. Women undertake manual work alongside men on construction sites in Delhi, and many suffer injuries as a consequence: an eighth of the injuries were sustained by females. Children accompanying their working parents on construction sites are also at risk. Two main hazards to construction workers in Delhi were building collapses and electrical shocks. Electricians were over twice as likely as unskilled workers to suffer a fatal injury, and electrical work would appear to be undertaken by a multitude of occupations. As the global urban population increases over the coming decades, so too will the burden of injuries to construction workers. The introduction and enforcement of occupational safety, health, and working conditions laws in India and in other rapidly developing countries will be necessary to help to control this injury burden to construction workers.

Analysis of Human Error Risk with Human Reliability Methods in Construction Projects

Work injury rates in Indonesia are relatively high, resulting in an urgency to maintain the safety of workers whose numbers are increasing. The biggest sector contributing to work accidents in Indonesia is the construction area, including building construction and causing large physical and financial losses. Workplace accidents are usually caused by human error and are strongly related to human reliability. The use of Fuzzy Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Method (Fuzzy CREAM) method is aimed at research to analyze patterns of worker behavior that affect the risk of workplace accidents combined with Bayesian Network simulation. 176 construction workers in the Jakarta and surrounding areas became the object of research. The value of Human Error Probability (HEP) was successfully obtained and the solution was given based on the characteristics of workers in the Control Mode category.

A hybrid structured deep neural network with Word2Vec for construction accident causes classification

According to the latest fatal work injury rates reported by the Bureau of Labors Statistics, construction sites remain the most hazardous workplaces. In the construction sector, fatality investigation summary reports are available for past accidents and by investigating such reports, valuable insights can be gained. In this study, text mining algorithms are explored for automatic construction accident causes classification. To be more specific, Word2Vec skip-gram model is utilized to learn word embedding from a domain-specific corpus and a hybrid structured deep neural network is proposed by incorporating the learned word embedding for accident reports classification. Dataset from Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is employed in the experiment to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. Besides, five baseline models: support vector machine (SVM), linear regression (LR), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), decision tree (DT), Naive Bayes (NB) are employed to compare with the proposed approach. Experiment results show that the proposed model achieves the highest average weighted F1 score among all models considered in this study. The result also proves the effectiveness of applying Word2Vec skip-gram algorithm for semantic information augmentation. As a result, robustness of the model is improved when classifying cases of low support values.

When safety climate is not enough: Examining the moderating effects of psychosocial hazards on nurse safety performance.

To examine the association between components of safety climate and psychosocial hazards with safe work behaviours and test the moderating effects of psychosocial hazards on the safety climate-safety performance relationships. The effects of a strong safety climate on safety performance are well cited, however, the conditions that have an impact on this relationship warrant attention. While the psychosocial hazards commonly reported by nurses are predictors of well-being and job attitudes, evidence suggests that these may also place boundaries on the effects of safety climate on safe work practices. This study used a cross-sectional design to collect data from 146 nurses. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling and snowball sampling methods in 2017. Nurses completed an online questionnaire and received a $5 e-gift card as compensation. SPSS v.23 and PROCESS v3.0 were used to analyse the data. A strong safety climate was positively associated with nurses' safety performance. While psychosocial hazards did not predict safety performance, they did moderate the safety climate-performance relationship. High levels of perceived stressors weakened the association between promoting two-way safety communication, the use and implementation of procedures to promote safe work practices and management's endorsement of health and safety with safe work performance. The positive effects of safety climate on nurses' safety performance are contingent on the levels of psychosocial hazards nurses experience. When aiming to improve safety performance among nurses, it is important for efforts to also focus on the psychosocial conditions of the work environment.

The health of foreign workers: an Italian and international priority.

About 5 million migrants are resident in Italy. Migrant workers are mainly employed in manual, unqualified jobs that Italians tend not to perform anymore. Compared to Italians, they tend to be more hired by precarious contracts. Migrants present a higher risk of work injuries and occupational illnesses than natives. This excess risk is linked to the concentration of migrants in the most dangerous jobs, greater risk tolerance, language and cultural barriers that reduce the effectiveness of any training actions. With the economic crisis, there has been a further worsening of the conditions of workers. Despite the decline in work injury rates, which follow the trend of the economic cycle, the distance between Italians and migrants has remained largely unaltered. The worst health conditions of migrants are not related to individual intrinsic factors, but to the way the economy exploits the social weakness of the migrant to gain profits. Better surveillance data is needed to improve the description and understanding the mechanisms by which migrants are systematically in worse health and safety conditions and to provide direction to effective public health interventions.

Determinants of work-related accidents in Italian Regions.

To identify the determinants of the regional differences in work injuries and mortality rates in Italy. Several linear regression models were built assessing the association between regional differences in work mortality and injury rates (as dependent variables) and socio-demographic factors (occupation and population) and variables describing alcohol consumption, mean age and availability of health care (as independent variables). Data sources are from ISTAT, INAIL, Health for All database and the national report Osservasalute. The analysis was carried out using data coming from all the Italian Regions. The mean work mortality rate for the period 2006-2014 was 7.73 (DS 1.85) per 100,000 workers, while the injury rate was 4503.1 (DS 1413.5) per 100,000 workers. Socio-demographic variables and that related to health care (TC availability) were inversely associated with mortality rates, while for the work injury rates, significant associations with alcohol were found, while Gross domestic product and TC availability were inversely associated. The study pointed out the extreme heterogeneity between different geographical areas in the field of work injury, due to different socio-demographic and economic factors. In the future, health surveillance and work injury and mortality rates could be improved in areas at high risk.

The Effectiveness of Total Worker Health Interventions: A Systematic Review for a National Institutes of Health Pathways to Prevention Workshop.

The Total Worker Health (TWH) program of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health aims to advance worker well-being by integrating injury and illness prevention efforts with work-related safety and health hazard efforts. To evaluate evidence on the benefits and harms of integrated TWH interventions. MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and PsycINFO (January 1990 through September 2015); clinical trial registries; and reference lists. English-language studies that enrolled employed adults and compared integrated interventions with usual work practice, no intervention, or another intervention. Dual abstraction and risk-of-bias (ROB) assessment. Ten of the 15 included studies had high ROB, primarily because of selection and attrition bias. Findings graded as having low strength of evidence (SOE) supported the effectiveness of TWH interventions for improving smoking cessation, as measured by self-reported 7-day abstinence over 22 to 26 weeks (2 randomized, controlled trials [RCTs]; n= 737), and increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables over 26 to 104 weeks (3 RCTs; n= 6056); results apply to populations of blue-collar manufacturing and construction workers. Findings graded as having low SOE supported the effectiveness of TWH interventions for reducing sedentary work behavior in office workers over 16 to 52 weeks (2 RCTs; n= 262). Evidence was insufficient or lacking for other outcomes of interest, such as rates of work injuries, quality of life, and harms. Small, diverse body of evidence with many methodological limitations; possible publication bias. Integrated TWH interventions might improve health behaviors (for example, reduce tobacco use and sedentary behavior and improve diet) of workers, but effects of these interventions on injuries and overall quality of life are not known. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Estimation of the relative risks of musculoskeletal injuries in the Andalusian manufacturing sector

BackgroundHigher injury rates of workers with specific characteristics can show areas of interest for intervention. Worker characteristics can be a risk factor because there is a differential distribution of exposure or because a particular worker characteristic affects the worker's behavior and the effects of work in the musculoskeletal system. ObjectiveTo estimate the relative risk for the most frequent accident mechanisms and to present the usefulness of the information from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives for a better estimation of the relative risk based on epidemiological analysis of specific types of accident controlling for possible confounders. Materials and methodsThe most frequent accident mechanisms were identified by analyzing the official accident notifications. To estimate the exposed workers, the Continuous Sample of Working Lives dataset is used. The dataset contains employment variables such as occupational levels, sector of activity, contract type and duration of employment. It also includes relevant variables related to demographics such as location, age, sex and nationality. ResultsAdjusted relative risk confirms that female workers, foreign, non-manual and older workers have lower injury rates. ConclusionsThe use of the Continuous Sample of Working Lives is useful in the analysis of the risk factors for particular types of accidents and allows a better estimation of the relative risks of accident.

Non-reporting of work injuries and aspects of jobsite safety climate and behavioral-based safety elements among carpenters in Washington State.

Declining work injury rates may reflect safer work conditions as well as under-reporting. Union carpenters were invited to participate in a mailed, cross-sectional survey designed to capture information about injury reporting practices. Prevalence of non-reporting and fear of repercussions for reporting were compared across exposure to behavioral-based safety elements and three domains of the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50). The majority (>75%) of the 1,155 participants felt they could report work-related injuries to their supervisor without fear of retribution, and most felt that the majority of injuries on their jobsites got reported. However, nearly half indicated it was best not to report minor injuries, and felt pressures to use their private insurance for work injury care. The prevalence of non-reporting and fear of reporting increased markedly with poorer measures of management safety justice (NOSACQ-50). Formal and informal policies and practices on jobsites likely influence injury reporting.

0418 Evaluation of an audit-based occupational health and safety recognition program on firm work-injury rates in British Columbia, Canada

ObjectivesIn 2003 British Columbia’s occupational health and safety (OHS) regulator implemented a voluntary audit-based OHS recognition program in select industrial sectors. Firms achieving OHS certification received a rebate on workers’...

Issues in Understanding the Impact of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act on Hospital Sharps Injuries

Measuring the effect of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act (NSPA) is challenging. No agreement exists on a common denominator for calculating injury rates. Does it make a difference? How are the law and safety-engineered devices related? What is the effect on injuries and costs? This study examines those issues in assessing the impact of the legislation on hospital worker percutaneous injuries. Using a historic prospective design, we analyzed injury data from 85 hospitals. Injury rates were calculated per 100 full-time equivalents, 100 staffed beds, and 100 admissions each year from 1995 to 2005. We compared changes for each denominator. We measured the proportion of the injury rate attributed to safety-engineered devices. Finally, we estimated a national change in injuries and associated costs. For all denominators, a precipitous drop in injury rates of greater than one-third ([Formula: see text]) occurred in 2001, immediately following the legislation. The decrease was sustained through 2005. Concomitant with the decrease in rates, the proportion of injuries from safety-engineered devices nearly tripled ([Formula: see text]) across all denominators. We estimated annual reductions of more than 100,000 sharps injuries at a cost savings of $69-$415 million. While the data cannot demonstrate cause and effect, the evidence suggests a reduction in hospital worker injury rates related to the NSPA, regardless of denominator. It also suggests an association between the increase in safety-engineered devices and the reduction in overall injury rates. The decreases observed translate into significant reductions in injuries and associated costs.

Descriptive Study of Occupational Accidents and their Causes among Electricity Distribution Company Workers at an Eight-year Period in Iran

BackgroundOccupational accidents are unplanned events that cause damage. The socio-economic impacts and human costs of accidents are tremendous around the world. Many fatalities happen every year in workplaces such as electricity distribution companies. Some electrical injuries are electrocution, electric shock, and burns. This study was conducted in an electricity distribution company (with rotational 12-hour shift work) in Iran during an 8-year period to survey descriptive factors of injuries.MethodsVariables collected included accident time, age of injured worker, employment type, work experience, injury cause, educational background, and other information about accidents.ResultsResults indicated that most of the accidents occurred in summer, and 51.3% were during shift work. Worker negligence (malpractice) was the cause of 75% of deaths. Type of employment had a significant relationship with type of injuries (p < 0.05). Most injuries were electrical burns.ConclusionHigh rate of accidents in summer may be due to the warm weather or insufficient professional skills in seasonal workers. Shift workers are at risk of sleep complaints leading to a high rate of work injuries. Acquiring knowledge about safety was related to job experiences. Temporary workers have no chance to work all year like permanent workers, therefore impressive experiences may be less in them. Because the lack of protective equipment and negligence are main causes of accidents, periodical inspections in workshops are necessary.

On the differential impact of the recent economic downturn on work safety by nativity: the Spanish experience

Abstract Abstract This paper explores differences in work injury and fatality rates between immigrants and natives and how they may have been impacted by the recent economic downturn. Our focus is on Spain over the 2001–2010 decade -a period of time during which Spain received one of the largest immigrant inflows of any developed economy and subsequently experienced a recession that has raised national unemployment rates above 20 percent. We find that immigrants worked in riskier jobs than natives during this high immigration period. Furthermore, the recession appears to have exclusively reduced job injury rates, but not fatality rates, among the average immigrant -hinting on their misreporting due to fear of dismissal as the primary cause for the observed decline. Overall, the figures are suggestive of work safety inequalities that may be important to address. JEL codes J61, J81

Worker safety in a mature carbon capture and storage industry in the United States based upon analog industry experience

Insight into worker safety in a mature carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry in the United States (US) can be gained by analogy to a variety of existing industries. Worker safety in capture facility construction will be below median, as is typical for construction. Worker safety in capture operation will be above median based on the oil refining, fossil fuel electric power generation, and industrial gas processing analogs. Pipeline construction and operation worker injury rates will be below median based on analogy with oil and gas pipeline construction and operation; however construction will have the unfortunately typical high fatality rate. Storage field worker safety will be mixed with below median injury rates but high fatality rates based on the oil and gas production analog. Still, safety in the oil and gas production analog is better than in the heavy and civil engineering construction industry and much better than in some other common industries, such as marine and truck transportation. CCS worker safety will be greater than the analogs due to the lack of flammable fluid handling, extremely high or low temperatures, product transportation by truck, and relatively less drilling effort, more geophysics effort, and more onshore work. Many of these differences also suggest CCS will be safer for the public than the analogs.

Socio-economic and occupational determinants of work injury absence

Measures of socio-economic position, such as education, occupational class and income, are well-known determinants of ill-health, injury and sickness absence. The aim was to analyse socio-economic and occupational determinants of work injury absence and their contribution to overall socio-economic inequalities in all-cause sickness absence. A register-based follow-up study included municipal employees of the City of Helsinki aged 25-59 years in 2004. The number of participants was 16,471 women and 5033 men. The mean follow-up time was 3.0 years. Education, occupational class and individual income were used as measures of socio-economic position. The main outcome was medically confirmed work injury and all-cause sickness absence of ≥4 days. Inequality indices were calculated using Poisson regression analysis. High education, occupational class and individual income were consistently associated with lower work injury absence among both women and men. The inequalities in work injury absence were larger than in all-cause sickness absence, especially among men, but the contribution to overall socio-economic inequalities was limited. Among women, bus drivers, cooks and hospital attendants had the highest rates of work injuries. Among men, youth mentors, firemen and janitors had the highest rates. Our results indicate that relative socio-economic inequalities in work injury absence are larger than in all-cause sickness absence. Prevention of work injuries provides a source of reducing socio-economic inequalities in health, but their effect is not very large. Prevention of work injuries should be targeted to lower white-collar and manual workers and vulnerable occupations.

Worker Injuries and Safety Equipment in Ohio Nursing Homes

A survey of Ohio nursing homes was conducted in 2007 to examine whether injury rates were related to facility characteristics and availability of safety equipment. The median rate of injury in the 898 facilities was 5.7 injuries per 100 workers per year. Although 95% of the facilities had written resident lift-ing policies, only 22% of these were zero-lift policies. Gait transfer belts(99%) and portable total-lift hoists(96%) were common, whereas ceiling-mounted total-lift hoists were rarely reported (7%). In a multivariable analysis, injury rate ratios increased with the proportion of residents using wheel-chairs and were lower in smaller facilities. Facilities without a lifting policy had a higher estimated injury rate than facilities without such a policy; however, none of the safety equipment was associated with significant changes in injury rates. More information, such as frequency of use and access to ver-sus availability of equipment, may be needed to better understand the im-pact of safety equipment on nursing home worker injury rates.

Examining the decline in lost-time claim rates across age groups in Ontario between 1991 and 2007

ObjectivesGiven the tendency for young people to show elevated work injury rates, this study sought to examine trends in young worker and adult compensation claim rates in a Canadian province.MethodsWorkers'...

The Pennsylvania certified safety committee program: An evaluation of participation and effects on work injury rates

Since 1994, Pennsylvania, like several other states, has provided a 5% discount on workers' compensation insurance premiums for firms with a certified joint labor management safety committee. This study explored the factors affecting program participation and evaluated the effect of this program on work injuries. Using Pennsylvania unemployment insurance data (1996-2006), workers' compensation data (1998-2005), and the safety committee audit data (1999-2007), we conducted propensity score matching and regression analysis on the program's impact on injury rates. Larger firms, firms with higher injury rates, firms in high risk industries, and firms without labor unions were more likely to join the safety committee program and less likely to drop out of the program. The injury rates of participants did not decline more than the rates for non-participants; however, rates at participant firms with good compliance dropped more than the rates at participant firms with poor compliance. Firm size and prior injury rates are key predictors of program participation. Firms that complied with the requirement to train their safety committee members did experience reductions in injuries, but non-compliance with that and other requirements was so widespread that no overall impact of the program could be detected.