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Citation
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Lay AM, Saunders R, Lifshen M, Breslin FC, Lamontagne AD, Tompa E, Smith PM. Safety Sci. 2017; 94: 85-93. |
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Abstract
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Workplace injury and illness account for a substantial source of sickness and disability burden in working-age populations. For example, injuries and illnesses arising from work cost the Canadian economy an estimated at $19 billion annually (Gilks and Logan, 2010). In addition to substantial economic costs, occupational injury places an additional strain on workplaces and families, and has the potential to exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities (Benach et al., 2007).
Previous research has been successful in identifying patterns in the uneven distribution of workplace injuries and risk. Groups at higher risk of work-related injury— often labeled “vulnerable workers”—are routinely identified using single demographic or occupational and organizational characteristics. Included under this “vulnerability” rubric are young workers (Breslin and Smith, 2005), new workers (Breslin and Smith, 2006), workers in temporary jobs (Quinlan et al., 2001), recent immigrants (Premji and Smith, 2013; Smith and Mustard, 2010), and those in high-hazard industries (Dembe et al., 2004). Newer research has also begun to examine how the interactions between individual demographic characteristics exacerbate occupational health risks (NIOSH, ASSE, 2015).
The approach of identifying vulnerable workers using isolated characteristics can lead to unfounded presumptions that individual population groups are inherently more risky or accident-prone, and often focuses on behaviour-change and education as primary solutions to workplace injury (DeJoy, 2005). It also provides only limited information that may be used to design primary prevention activities, as it assumes that dissimilar population groups sharing the label “vulnerable” are at increased risk for the same, or very similar, reasons...
Language: en |