M.Sc. (Med.) (Epidemiology and Biostatistics), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / Introduction: Work - related injuries are of major public health importance because they have
severe negative economic and social impacts to individuals, families, and a country’s economy
as a whole. South Africa is a rapidly expanding economy and so there is great potential for workrelated
injuries. Notably, a number of studies on work-related injuries in South Africa and
globally are done at the industry level. While no effort to minimise occupational injuries at the
enterprise level should be spared, more information is also required on the morbidity burden of
these work-related injuries at the general population level. It was therefore against this
background, that this research project was carried out.
Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the association between injuries and
occupations among workers aged 15 - 65 years.
Methods: The dataset for this dissertation was extracted from the South African 2001 Labour
Force Survey. Only respondents who reported having worked in the previous twelve months
were included in the study sample (n=21,751). The outcome variable was injury over the
previous twelve months. The explanatory variables were socio-demographic, occupation, and
occupationally related characteristics. Logistic regression controlling for the socio-demographic
characteristics was used to identify occupational and occupationally related predictors for
incidence of injury at 95% confidence level.
Results: Injury incidence of 4% (894/ 21751) was reported which was mainly associated with
age, gender, ethnicity and province of residence at p<0.05. Male workers were more likely to
sustain accidents than female workers with a risk ratio of male/female of 2.4 times.
Unexpectedly, injuries increased with age. In respect to ethnicity, the Coloureds, Indian/Asians
and Whites were 18%, 48% and 44% less likely to sustain injuries respectively compared to the
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African blacks while workers in the group called “Other” were 5.3 times at risk than African
blacks.
Adjusted analyses indicated that, workers in mining and quarrying (AOR=2.2), crafts and related
trade (AOR=4.0), plant and machine operators (AOR=4.4) and elementary occupations
(AOR=2.7) were predisposed to a higher risk of sustaining injury than other occupations.
Surprisingly, permanent workers, those with written contract, pension contribution were found
to have a higher likelihood of sustaining injuries than their counterparts.
Conclusions: The incidence of injury to workers in South Africa was found to be at 4%. The
older, male, and permanently employed workers were at a greater risk of sustaining injuries
compared to young, female and casual workers respectively.
In regards to occupations, mining and quarrying, crafts and related trade and elementary
occupations elevated the risk of sustaining injuries than other occupations. It is highly
recommended that occupation-specific programmes be instituted to minimise worker injuries
particularly among the high risk work places.
Further research is also required to investigate findings that were found to be inconsistent with
existing literature namely; increase of injuries with increase in age, and why workers on
permanent versus casual employment were more likely to sustain injuries.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/11307 |
| Date | 14 February 2012 |
| Creators | Kinoti, Mary Kanyua |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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