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Work-Related Injuries Among Immigrant Workers in Italy

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Abstract

In Italy, work-related injuries among immigrant workers are an emerging concern. In this study, we compared the occurrence of work-related injuries between legally residing immigrants from High Migration Pressure Countries and Italians and evaluated the associations with potential risk factors. Using data from the 2007 Labour Force Survey conducted by Italy’s National Institute of Statistics, we examined the relationship between the occurrence of work-related injuries in the previous 12 months and being an immigrant among a nationally representative sample. The occurrence of work-related injuries was significantly higher among immigrant males compared to Italian males (adjusted OR = 1.82; 95 % CI 1.53–2.16), particularly in the construction sector, for which the results showed a U-shaped trend of the odds ratios of injuries for immigrants compared to Italians with increasing number of years of work in the same job. No associations were found among women. The findings suggest that prevention programs need to be implemented to limit the burden of work-related injuries among immigrants.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mark Kanieff for his assistance in revising the text. This work was supported by the ISFOL—ex Istituto per gli Affari Sociali (research project “Sperimentazione di un modello di osservatorio sugli infortuni dei lavoratori immigrati basato sull’utilizzo integrato dei flussi informativi correnti”, decision n. 10, 2/25/2009).

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Correspondence to Giovanni Baglio.

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Salvatore, M.A., Baglio, G., Cacciani, L. et al. Work-Related Injuries Among Immigrant Workers in Italy. J Immigrant Minority Health 15, 182–187 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-012-9673-8

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