TY - JOUR PY - 2022// TI - Business performance and occupational injuries trajectories in the construction sector in Sweden JO - Safety science A1 - Kreshpaj, Bertina A1 - Bottai, Matteo A1 - Matilla-Santander, Nuria A1 - Axén, Magnus A1 - Orellana, Cecilia A1 - Burstrom, Bo A1 - Hemmingsson, Tomas A1 - Jonsson, Johanna A1 - Håkansta, Carin A1 - Wegman, David H. A1 - Bodin, Theo SP - e105772 EP - e105772 VL - 152 IS - N2 - OBJECTIVE To identify patterns in business performance and occupational injuries (OIs) in the Swedish construction sector between 2003 and 2015 and investigate associations between these trajectories. Methods Company-level data were gathered from national registers. An open cohort of 13,089 private construction companies were classified by size. Yearly business performance indicators were return on equity, operating margin, and labor-to-revenue ratio. OIs rate was defined as number of injuries divided by number of employees. Group-based trajectory models were performed to identify companies with similar patterns in business performance and OIs rate over time. Associations were investigated with binomial regression models. Results The model identified two main patterns (high/low) of injuries and business indicators for all company sizes. Trends in low labor-to-revenue ratio were associated with a high injury rate with a pooled estimate of 1.43 (95% CI 1.22-1.64) with some variation by company size: super small OR 1.3 (95% CI 1.01-1.62), small, OR 1.74 (95% CI 1.39-2.18), medium OR 1.3 (95% CI 0.9-1.8) and large OR 2.1 (95% CI 0.77-5.7). Similarly, low patterns of returns on equity were associated with high injury rate patterns across all company sizes, excluding small enterprises. No associations were found for operating margin patterns. Conclusions Low returns on equity and labor-to-revenue ratio were associated with higher OIs rate trajectories in the Swedish construction sector, which has implications for injury prevention as well as targeted surveillance and inspection. Further studies could investigate other economic sectors and possible mechanisms for this association.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0925-7535 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2022.105772 ID - ref1 ER -