Workplace experiences of young workers in Ontario

Perspectives of parents of working adolescents in Ontario, Canada

Background

More than half of adolescents have jobs in summer or sometime during the year. While employers are ultimately responsible for their safety, parents are often important in helping their children navigate the work environment. Our study examines the attitudes, beliefs and types of involvement parents have in their children’s work.

Methods

We modeled a telephone survey of 507 English-speaking parents of working adolescents in Ontario, Canada on a US study and examined their perspectives, comparing to earlier findings from the U.S. parents.

Results

Most Ontario parents helped their teens consider questions to ask about work, for example, work hours (90.7%) and job tasks (78.2%) and fewer about workplace safety (57.9%). Parents overall were concerned about their teens, especially younger teens, getting behind on schoolwork (69.3%), being rushed on the job (60.1%) and doing hazardous tasks (58.3%) or working alone (51.9%), or being at work during a robbery (74.5%). Parents of 14–17-year-old daughters were more concerned about their child being assaulted than were parents of sons (62.4% vs. 51.4%), particularly if the teen was in the 18–19 age group (74.3% vs. 52.5%). Half the parents indicated 10–19 h per week was the right amount of work time for their teen, and most agreed that laws should limit the number of hours of youth work.

Conclusions

Overall, Ontario parents appear to be more concerned about the safety and also more involved in the work of their adolescent children than U.S. parents previously surveyed. Parents are engaged with their children about their work and may serve as valuable assets to helping to advocate for safe work policies and environments.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-10377-9.

Development and Validation of the Health Literacy Scale for Workers

Background:

Health literacy has received growing attention in recent years to reduce health disparities. Health literate individuals can gain access, understand and use health information to maintain, improve and promote good health.

Objective:

To develop and assess the psychometric properties of a tool for the measurement of health literacy among workers, the Health Literacy Scale for Workers (HELSW).

Methods:

15 companies were selected from the factories of the industrial city of Saveh. 450 (400 male and 50 female) workers from Saveh, Iran, were selected through a multistage random sampling. The study had two stages—a qualitative and a quantitative stage. In the qualitative phase, the workers' beliefs were extracted based on 61 in-depth interviews. Content validity was assessed with the help of 12 experts in the field of health education, public health and occupational health. Also, face validity was evaluated through interviewing with 20 workers. In the quantitative phase, the reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated by measuring the internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The construct validity was assessed by the principal component analysis using varimax rotation.

Results:

In the exploratory factor analysis, six domains (ie, access, reading, understanding, assessment, decision making and applying health information, and self-efficacy) with 34 items were loaded; the model explained 64.3% of the total variance. Intraclass correlation coefficient and test-retest reliability ranged from 0.72 to 0.84 and 0.69 to 0.86, respectively.

Conclusion:

It seems that the developed Persian questionnaire, HELSW, is a reliable and valid measure of the health literacy in workers.

Foundational workplace safety and health competencies for the emerging workforce

INTRODUCTION

Young workers (aged 15-24) suffer disproportionately from workplace injuries, with a nonfatal injury rate estimated to be two times higher than among workers age 25 or over. These workers make up approximately 9% of the U.S. workforce and studies have shown that nearly 80% of high school students work at some point during high school. Although young worker injuries are a pressing public health problem, the critical knowledge and skills needed to prepare youth for safe and healthy work are missing from most frameworks used to prepare the emerging U.S. workforce.

METHODS

A framework of foundational workplace safety and health knowledge and skills (the NIOSH 8 Core Competencies) was developed based on the Health Belief Model (HBM).

RESULTS

The proposed NIOSH Core Competencies utilize the HBM to provide a framework for foundational workplace safety and health knowledge and skills. An examination of how these competencies and the HBM apply to actions that workers take to protect themselves is provided. The social and physical environments that influence these actions are also discussed.

CONCLUSIONS

The NIOSH 8 Core Competencies, grounded in one of the most widely used health behavior theories, fill a critical gap in preparing the emerging U.S. workforce to be cognizant of workplace risks.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Integration of the NIOSH 8 Core Competencies into school curricula is one way to ensure that every young person has the foundational workplace safety and health knowledge and skills to participate in, and benefit from, safe and healthy work.

Perceptions of Supervision Among Injured and Non-Injured Teens Working in the Retail or Service Industry

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a teen is injured every 9 minutes at work. Workplace supervision may affect whether teens are injured on the job. Because research on workplace supervision among teens is limited, the objectives of this study were to characterize the perceptions of supervision among injured and non-injured teen workers and assess the characteristics and perceptions of supervisors that may be associated with work-related injuries. In 2011, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among high school students. Teens who worked in retail or service industries (n= 270) were included in the sample. Non-injured teens were more likely to have reported that their supervisors cared about their safety, were helpful, listened well, and ensured that teen workers understood workplace safety. Most teens (70%) did not feel comfortable talking about safety issues with their supervisors. The importance of supervision and how supervisors are perceived in the workplace may be significant in creating a safety culture that leaves a lasting impression.

Assessment of occupational health and safety hazard exposures among working college students

BACKGROUND

Adolescents and young adults have higher injury rates than their adult counterparts in similar jobs. This study used the working college student population to assess health and safety hazards in the workplace, characterize related occupational diseases and injuries, and describe worker health/safety activities provided by employers.

METHODS

College students (≥17 years old) were assessed via online surveys about work history, workplace exposure to hazards, occupational diseases/injuries, and workplace health/safety activities.

RESULTS

Approximately half (51%) of participants (n = 1,147) were currently employed at the time of the survey or had been employed while enrolled in college. Restaurants (other than fast food) were the most frequently reported work setting. The most reported workplace hazards included noise exposure and contact with hot liquids/surfaces. Twenty percent of working students experienced injury at work; some injuries were severe enough to limit students' normal activities for >3 days (30%) or require medical attention (44%). Men had significantly higher prevalence of injuries (P = 0.05) and near-misses (P < 0.01) at work than women. Injury occurrence was associated with near-misses (AOR = 5.08, P < 0.01) and co-worker injuries (AOR = 3.19, P < 0.01) after gender and age adjustments. Most (77%) received worker safety training and half were given personal protective equipment (PPE) by their employers.

CONCLUSIONS

Risk reduction from workplace injuries and illnesses among working college students may be achieved by implementing occupational health and safety (OHS) strategies including incorporation of OHS in the college curriculum, promotion of OHS by university/college student health services, and improving awareness of OHS online resources among college students, employers, and educators.

Workdays lost due to occupational injuries among young workers in Brazil

BACKGROUND

The severity of non-fatal work-related injuries has seldom been examined among young workers. We estimated the extent and distribution of workdays lost due to non-fatal work injuries using compensation data.

METHODS

Data are from the Brazilian Institute of Social Insurance, for 2006. The study population is comprised of all insured workers of age 16-24. Descriptive statistics reflect workdays lost due to health-related disability, according to sex, age group, wage, and trade.

RESULTS

Out of 4.8 million insured workers ages 16-24 years, we estimated 1,282,940 workdays lost. We observed a larger number of median workdays lost among males age 20-24 in retail and service trades (83 days) and among 16-19-year-old females in the agriculture/fish/forestry/cattle (142 days).

CONCLUSIONS

Young workers experience a heavy burden of work-related injuries. Disability workdays may compromise school attendance and performance. Other potential impacts affect productivity and social insurance costs.

Setting an agenda for advancing young worker safety in the U.S. and Canada

Scholars and practitioners from multiple perspectives, including developmental science, sociology, business, medicine, and public health, have considered the implications of employment for young people. We summarize a series of meetings designed to synthesize information from these perspectives and derive recommendations to guide research, practice, and policy with a focus on young worker safety and health. During the first three meetings, participants from the United States and Canada considered invited white papers addressing developmental issues, public health data and findings, as well as programmatic advances and evaluation needs. At the final meeting, the participants recommended both research and policy directions to advance understanding and improve young worker safety.