Risk of injury in African American hospital workers

Very few data exist that describe the risk of injury in African American he alth care workers, who are highly represented in health care occupations. T he present study examined the risk for work-related injury in African Ameri can hospital workers. Hospital Occupational Health Service medical records and a hospital human resource database were used to compare risk of injury between African American and white workers after adjusting for gender, age, physical demand of the job, and total hours worked. Risk of work-related i njury was 2.3 times higher in African Americans. This difference was not ex plained by the other independent variables. Differences in injury reporting , intra-job workload psychosocial factors, and organizational factors are a ll potential explanations for racial disparity in occupational injury. More research is needed to clarify these findings.