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Occupational Medicine Advance Access originally published online on March 13, 2009
Occupational Medicine 2009 59(3):149-152; doi:10.1093/occmed/kqp011
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Are female healthcare workers at higher risk of occupational injury?

Hasanat Alamgir1, Shicheng Yu1, Sharla Drebit1, Catherine Fast2 and Catherine Kidd2

1 Statistics and Evaluation, Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare in British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2 Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Background Differential risks of occupational injuries by gender have been examined across various industries. With the number of employees in healthcare rising and an overwhelming proportion of this workforce being female, it is important to address this issue in this growing sector.

Aims To determine whether compensated work-related injuries among females are higher than their male colleagues in the British Columbia healthcare sector.

Methods Incidents of occupational injury resulting in compensated days lost from work over a 1-year period for all healthcare workers were extracted from a standardized operational database and the numbers of productive hours were obtained from payroll data. Injuries were grouped into all injuries and musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs). Detailed analysis was conducted using Poisson regression modelling.

Results A total of 42 332 employees were included in the study of whom 11% were male and 89% female. When adjusted for age, occupation, sub-sector, employment category, health region and facility, female workers had significantly higher risk of all injuries [rate ratio (95% CI) = 1.58 (1.24–2.01)] and MSIs [1.43 (1.11–1.85)] compared to their male colleagues.

Conclusions Occupational health and safety initiatives should be gender sensitive and developed accordingly.

Keywords      Gender; healthcare workers; musculoskeletal injury; occupational injury

Correspondence to: Hasanat Alamgir, Statistics and Evaluation, Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare in British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6H 3X5, Canada. Tel: +1 778 328 8013; fax: +1 778 328 8001; E-mail: hasanat{at}ohsah.bc.ca


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