Risk of work injury among adolescent students from single and partnered parent families

Young workers and safety: A critical review and future research agenda

INTRODUCTION

Research on young worker safety often relies on inconsistent definitions of young workers and poorly delineated indicators of occupational safety. This review aims to reconcile these fundamental issues by critically integrating research across disciplines and providing clear directions for future research on young worker safety.

METHOD

We critically review the extant research on young worker safety.

RESULTS

We first reconcile the inconsistent definitions of young workers and specify the indicators of occupational safety used in young worker safety research. We next describe the prevalence of workplace injuries and population-level predictors of these injuries among young workers and then outline other factors that increase young workers' susceptibility to workplace injuries. Finally, we discuss the convergence of many of these issues on family farms-a context commonly studied in young worker safety research.

CONCLUSIONS

Clearer definitions of young workers and indicators of occupational safety can improve the interpretation and comparability of extant research findings. Furthermore, the prevalence of workplace injuries and population-level predictors of injury among young workers are subject to the interactions among age, gender, minority status, and job characteristics. Other factors that increase young workers' susceptibility to injury include young workers' responses to hazardous work, individual differences stemming from young workers' biological and psychological development, managerial attitudes about young workers, and the limited safety training young workers are thus provided, the types of work that young workers typically perform, and the range of social influences on young workers.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Safety campaigns and safety training should consider interactions among young workers' age, gender, minority status, and job characteristics, rather than considering these features independently.

Injuries among adolescents in Greenland: behavioural and socio-economic correlates among a nationally representative sample

Background

Injuries are among the most important threats to adolescent health, making examination of the patterns and risk factors a critical area of research. There exists a paucity of information on the health and injury experience of school-attending adolescents in Greenland. Consenting Greenlandic schoolchildren (n = 2,254) aged 9-19 years were included in the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children study 2005/2006. The aim of this study was to examine the socio-economic and behavioural correlates that were associated with injury occurrence among school-attending Greenlandic adolescents.

Methods

This study made use of two multinomial regression models to examine injury occurrence regarding potential influencing factors such as physical activity, risk behaviours, bullying and family socio-economic status (SES).

Results

Those self-reporting 1-2 injuries within the recall period were more likely to be male (OR = 1.70; CI [1.39-2.09]), involved in physical fighting (OR = 1.82; CI [1.33-2.47]), bullied (OR = 1.81; CI [1.47-2.24]) and participated in bullying others (OR = 1.53; CI [1.25-1.89]). Those reporting three or more injuries were again mostly male (OR = 2.13; CI [1.44-3.14]), involved in physical fighting at higher rates (OR = 4.47; CI [2.86-7.01]), bullied more often (OR = 2.43; CI [1.65-3.57]) and were more likely to bully others (OR = 1.67; CI [1.13-2.45]). Living without a mother proved to be significantly correlated with suffering 3 or more injuries during the recall period (OR = 1.63; CI [1.05-2.52]). The study results support the idea that factors that were found to be associated with injury occurrence, such as bullying and aggressive behaviour, should be taken into account when conducting future research on the nature of injuries among Greenlandic adolescents. More research on this topic is needed to identify factors that might modify the associations between injuries and adolescent behaviour and SES.