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Minorities, Latino immigrants face the greatest risk of workplace injuries

Articles | March 2 2017
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Minorities, Latino immigrants face the greatest risk of workplace injuries
Bias and limited job opportunities may be possible factors for the findings.

By Emily Gersema

Latino immigrants and African-American men work in jobs with the highest risk of injury, according to a new study of workplace injuries and disability.

“We found that their risk was higher even when we accounted for education and other demographic characteristics,” said lead author Seth Seabury, director of the Keck-Schaeffer Initiative for Population Health at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “Disparities in economic opportunities for minorities lead them to take more hazardous jobs that raise their risk of injury and disability.”

For the study published in the February edition of Health Affairs, USC researchers found that men ages 18 to 64 who are Latino immigrants have the highest average workplace injury rate at 13.7 per 1,000 workers, followed by African-American men (more than 12), and U.S.-born Latino men (nearly 12), white men (11.8), and Asian Americans (nearly 10). Other ethnicities have a rate of around 11 per 1,000 workers.  (Read more)