![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.png)
An overarching goal of Healthy People 2020 is to achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups. Young workers experience almost twice the rate of nonfatal work-related injury as adults. Socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with morbidity and mortality and teens’ risk of all injury is higher in low SES neighborhoods. Additionally SES can influence access to jobs, job-types, and working conditions. Most existing occupational health data sources lack SES measures. To assess the association of SES on work-related injury rates among teens and identify population characteristics of high rate areas, we applied area-based SES measures to the Massachusetts workers’ compensation (WC) data.
METHODS:
Geocoding methods were based on Harvard School of Public Health’s Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project. We extracted Massachusetts’ WC ≥5 lost workdays claims for <18 year-olds from 2000-2012. 94% of claims were geocoded to Census Tracts (CTs) based on residential addresses, using ArcGIS and the American Fact Finder, and linked to 2006-2010 American Community Survey's (ACS) CT percent estimates. CT percent-below-poverty levels were categorized as <5.0%, 5.0–9.9%, 10.0–19.9%, and ≥20.0%. Work-related injury rates (IRs) per 100,000 person-years among <18 year-olds and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated for each CT and CT percent-below-poverty level, using Census-based population as denominator. ACS characteristics of CTs with the highest injury rates were obtained.
RESULTS:
From 2000 to 2012, there were 2,767 work-related injuries among teens statewide (IR 13.8). Compared to the <5.0% below-poverty level (IR 12.2, CI 11.3-13.0), CTs with more persons living below poverty were significantly associated with higher rates of work-related teen injuries: 5.0-9.9% level: IR 14.6, CI 13.6-15.7; 10-19.9% level: IR 15.8, CI 14.5-17.2; and ≥20% level: IR 14.3, CI 12.9-15.6. The ten CTs with the highest injury rates had higher median percent of people who spoke another language and lower median percent of Blacks, Asians, and people with advanced degrees, compared to all CTs.
CONCLUSIONS:
CT percent-below-poverty level was positively associated with teen work-related injuries, suggesting SES disparities in occupational health outcomes. Since WC underreporting is likely high among teens, more research is also needed to understand the impact of SES on work-related injury reporting in this population.