The effect of demographic factors on occupational injuries

Construction Accidents in Spain: Implications for an Aging Workforce

Construction workers are getting older. In the European Union, the percentage of workers over 50 grew from 24.7% in 2011 to 31.5% in 2018, in Spain from 20.4% to 31.2%. Objective. Identify trends and detailed patterns of accidents of older construction workers compared to other age groups. Data and Method. We analyzed construction accidents in Spain from 2011 to 2018 (N = 455,491). The number of accidents and lost working days (LWD) were broken down by occupation, seniority, company size, temporal variables (weekday, hour), trigger, and body part injured and compared for different age groups. Results. Although older worker had fewer accidents, the consequences of accidents were more serious. Those over 50 years had 84% more lost working days (LWD) than those under 24 years, 48% more than those between 25 and 39 years, and 21% more than those between 40 and 49 years. (1) Occupation: the percentage of accidents grew with age for supervisors, lorry drivers, and bricklayers. (2) Seniority: the least experienced (less than 6 months) and the most experienced (more than 6 years) had the most LWD. (3) Company size: there are 24.5% of accidents in companies of less than four workers. (4) Trigger: older workers suffered more falls, both from height and at the same level. (5) Time: the percentage of accidents in those over 50 was higher on Thursdays and Fridays, in the afternoons from 4 to 7 p.m., and after four hours of work. (6) Injury: this shows the longest absences for shoulder injuries for those over 50 years, with an average of 70 LWD.

Designing a Model via Grounded Theory to Reduce Agricultural Work Injury among Orchardists in Ilam Province

The present study aimed to design a model to reduce agricultural work injury among orchardists in Ilam Province, Iran. This was a qualitative research study that used grounded theory to analyze data. The study included 25 specialists, managers, and experts of horticulture in Ilam Province who were selected through purposive sampling. Field observations and interviews in the form of focus groups were used for collecting data. The results were extracted from the research data through the coding process (open, axial, and selective) in the form of concepts, subcategories, and categories using MAXqda12. The paradigm model included causal, contextual and intervening conditions, strategy, and consequences. The results indicated that several causal conditions can affect work injury in agriculture. These were identified as vulnerability level, personal characteristics of orchardists, subsistence level, general health, climatic conditions, and academic qualifications. Contextual conditions also included categories like trends, occupational safety and health principles, infrastructure, government support, and government incentives. Meanwhile, intervening conditions were identified as structural, educational-research factors, economic criteria, regulation and development of marketing horticultural and greenhouse products, type of exploitation system, and orchardists' motivation. Finally, reducing agricultural work injuries among orchardists involved the multi-faceted identification of various aspects of production and education, along with technical, operational, executive, and supervisory management strategies. Reducing the number of agricultural work injuries among orchardists would lead to regional, economic, individual, and social benefits. The results helped researchers to identify what areas to address and mitigate safety issues of horticultural activities in Ilam.

Profile, risk factors and outcome of occupational injuries reported to the emergency department in a tertiary care hospital in South India

Background:

India is an industrialised country and most work is labour intensive. There is very scarce data on occupation related injuries

Aim:

To evaluate the prevalence, profile, severity and risk factors for occupational injuries presenting to the emergency medicine department of a tertiary care hospital.

Materials and Methods:

A cross-sectional study was done in the emergency department of Christian Medical College, Vellore among the patients who presented with occupational injuries. The risk factors for occupational injuries like age, gender, shift work, work experience and type of work and their severity and outcome were evaluated.

Results:

Older age group, working in shift duty, working longer hours were significant risk factors for occupational injuries.

Conclusion:

Training and use of safety protective measures will decrease occupational injuries.

Assessing ergonomic risk factors using combined data envelopment analysis and conventional methods for an auto parts manufacturer

BACKGROUND

Occupational injuries are currently a major contributor to job loss around the world and are also costly for businesses. The absence of rational analysis is felt in this area, so mathematical analysis is needed to obtain the logical results of these injuries in order to find gaps or loss points of the industry.

OBJECTIVE

This paper assesses the effects of five demographic factors on ergonomic risk and occupational injuries using an integrated mathematical programming approach. The obtained results will help managers to carry out any required corrective actions or establish benchmarks.

METHODS

Two typical ergonomic risk assessment methods, the Quick Exposure Check (QEC) and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA), are applied to assess musculoskeletal disorders in workers. Then, considering the five demographic factors as input variables and risks computed by the QEC and REBA methods as outputs, final risk rates for each decision-making unit (DMU) are calculated using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The importance and weight of each risk factor is analyzed using statistical techniques and analysis of variance (ANOVA). To demonstrate the applicability of the methodology, it is applied to a large auto parts manufacturer.

RESULTS

The results revealed that the information obtained by DEA is consistent with those for REBA and QEC, which shows that education, experience and weight are factors that could help reduce ergonomic risks.

CONCLUSION

It is shown that demographic variables such as age, height, weight, education and work experience play an important and effective role in the explanation of ergonomic risk factors.